WE  CAN'T  HAVE 
EVERYTHING 


RUPERT 
HUGHES 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE 
EVERYTHING 


WAR,  THE  SUXDERER,  HAD  REACHED  THEM  WITH  HIS  GREAT  DIVORCE 


WE  CAN'T  HAVE 
EVERYTHING 


A   NOVEL 


BY 


RUPERT    HUGHES 

AUTHOR  OF 

What  Will  People  Say? 


ILLUSTRATED   BY 

JAMES  MONTGOMERY  FLAGO 


HARPER  y  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 

NEW  YORK  AND   LONDON 


WE  CAH'T  HAVE  EVERYTHING 


Copyright.   1917.  by  Harp»r  &   Brothen 

Printed  In  the  United  State*  of  America 

Published.  August,  1917 


CONTENTS 

THE   FIRST  BOOK 

•MB 

Miss  KEDZIE  THROPP  COMES  TO  TOWN  ....        i 
THE   SECOND   BOOK 

MRS.  TOMMIE  GlLFOYLE  HAS  HER  PlCTURB  TAKEN      121 

THE  THIRD   BOOK 
MRS.  JIM  DYCKMAN  is  NOT  SATISFIED     ....    403 


222S420 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE 
EVERYTHING 


CHAPTER  I 

TV'EDZIE  THROPP  had  never  seen  Fifth  Avenue  or  a 
iSk.  yacht  or  a  butler  or  a  glass  of  champagne  or  an 
ocean  or  a  person  of  social  prominence.  She  wanted  to 
see  them. 

For  each  five  minutes  of  the  day  and  night,  one  girl 
comes  to  New  York  to  make  her  life ;  or  so  the  compilers 
of  statistics  claim. 

This  was  Kedzie  Thropp's  five  minutes. 

She  did  not  know  it,  and  the  two  highly  important, 
because  extremely  wealthy,  beings  in  the  same  Pullman 
car  never  suspected  her — never  imagined  that  the  tangle 
they  were  already  in  would  be  further  knotted,  then 
snipped,  then  snarled  up  again,  by  this  little  mediocrity. 

We  never  can  know  these  things,  but  go  blindly  groping 
through  the  crowd  of  fellow-gropers,  guessing  at  our  pres- 
ents and  getting  our  pasts  all  wrong.  What  could  we 
know  of  our  futures  ? 

Jim  Dyckman,  infamously  rich  (through  no  fault  of  his 
own),  could  not  see  far  enough  past  Charity  Coe  Cheever 
that  day  to  make  out  Kedzie  Thropp,  a  few  seats  removed. 
Charity  Coe — most  of  Mrs.  Cheever's  friends  still  called 
her  by  her  maiden  name — sat  with  her  back  turned  to 
Kedzie;  and  latterly  Charity  Coe  was  not  looking  over  her 
shoulder  much.  She  did  not  see  Kedzie  at  all. 

3 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

And  Kedzie  herself,  shabby  and  commonplace,  was  so 
ignorant  that  if  she  looked  at  either  Jim  or  Charity  Coe 
she  gave  them  no  heed,  for  she  had  never  even  heard  of 
them  or  seen  their  pictures,  so  frequent  in  the  papers. 

They  were  among  the  whom-not-to-know-argues-one- 
self -unknowns.  But  there  were  countless  other  facts  that 
argued  Kedzie  Thropp  unknown  and  unknowing.  As  she 
was  forever  saying,  she  had  never  had  anything  or  been 
anywhere  or  seen  anybody  worth  having,  being,  or  seeing. 

But  Jim  Dyckman,  everybody  said,  had  always  had 
everything,  been  everywhere,  known  everybody  who  was 
anybody.  As  for  Charity  Coe,  she  had  given  away  more 
than  most  people  ever  have.  And  she,  too,  had  traveled 
and  met. 

Yet  Kedzie  Thropp  was  destined  (if  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  being  destined — at  any  rate,  it  fell  to  her  lot)  to 
turn  the  lives  of  those  two  bigwigs  topsy-turvy,  and  to 
get  her  picture  into  more  papers  than  both  of  them  put 
together.  A  large  part  of  latter-day  existence  has  con- 
sisted of  the  fear  or  the  favor  of  getting  pictures  in  the 
papers. 

It  was  Kedzie's  unusual  distinction  to  win  into  the  head- 
lines at  her  first  entrance  into  New  York,  and  for  the 
quaintest  of  reasons.  She  had  somebody's  else  picture 
published  for  her  that  time;  but  later  she  had  her  very 
own  published  by  the  thousand  until  the  little  commoner, 
born  in  the  most  neglected  corner  of  oblivion,  grew  im- 
pudent enough  to  weary  of  her  fame  and  prate  of  the 
comforts  of  obscurity! 

Kedzie  Thropp  was  as  plebeian  as  a  ripe  peach  swung  in 
the  sun  across  an  old  fence,  almost  and  not  quite  within 
the  grasp  of  any  passer-by.  She  also  inspired  appetite, 
but  always  somehow  escaped  plucking  and  possession.  It 
is  doubtful  whether  anybody  ever  really  tasted  her  soul — 
if  she  had  one.  Her  flavor  was  that  very  inaccessibility. 
She  was  always  just  a  little  beyond.  Her  heart  was  forever 
fixed  on  the  next  thing,  just  quitting  the  last  thing. 

4 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Eternal,  delicious,  harrowing  discontent  was  Kedzie's  whole 
spirit. 

Charity  Coe's  habit  was  self-denial;  Kedzie's  self- 
fostering,  all-demanding.  She  was  what  Napoleon  would 
have  been  if  the  Little  Corporal  had  been  a  pretty  girl  with 
a  passion  for  delicacies  instead  of  powers. 

Thanks  to  Kedzie,  two  of  the  best  people  that  could 
be  were  plunged  into  miseries  that  their  wealth  only 
aggravated. 

Thanks  to  Kedzie,  Jim  Dyckman,  one  of  the  richest  men 
going  and  one  of  the  decentest  fellows  alive,  learned  what  it 
means  to  lie  in  shabby  domicile  and  to  salt  dirty  bread 
with  tears;  to  be  afraid  to  face  the  public  that  had  fawned 
on  him,  and  to  understand  the  portion  of  the  criminal 
and  the  pariah. 

And  sweet  Charity  Coe,  who  had  no  selfishness  in  any 
motive,  who  ought  to  have  been  canonized  as  a  saint  in 
her  smart  Parisian  robes  of  martyrdom,  found  the  clergy 
slamming  their  doors  in  her  face  and  bawling  her  name 
from  their  pulpits;  she  was,  as  it  .were,  lynched  by  the 
Church,  thanks  again  to  Kedzie. 

But  one  ought  not  to  hate  Kedzie.  It  was  not  her  fault 
(was  it  ?)  that  she  was  cooked  up  out  of  sugar  and  spice  and 
everything  nice  into  a  little  candy  allegory  of  selfishness 
with  one  pink  hand  over  her  little  heartless  heart-place 
and  one  pink  hand  always  outstretched  for  more. 

Kedzie  of  the  sugar  lip  and  the  honey  eye!  She  was 
going  to  be  carried  through  New  York  from  the  sub-sub- 
cellar  of  its  poverty  to  its  highest  tower  of  wealth.  She 
would  sleep  one  night  alone  under  a  public  bench  in  a  park, 
and  another  night,  with  all  sorts  of  nights  between,  she 
would  sleep  in  a  bed  where  a  duchess  had  lain,  and  in  arms 
Americanly  royal. 

So  much  can  the  grand  jumble  of  causes  and  effects- 
that  we  call  fate  do  with  a  wanderer  through  life. 

During  the  same  five  minutes  which  were  Kedzie's 
other  girls  were  making  for  New  York;  some  of  them 

5 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

to  succeed  apparently,  some  of  them  to  fail  undeniably, 
some  of  them  to  become  fine,  clean  wives;  some  of  them 
to  flare,  then  blacken  against  the  sky  because  of  famous 
scandals  and  fascinating  crimes  in  which  they  were  to  be 
involved. 

Their  motives  were  as  various  as  their  fates,  and  only 
one  thing  is  safe  to  say — that  their  motives  and  their 
fates  had  little  to  do  with  one  another.  Few  of  the  girls, 
if  any,  got  what  they  came  for  and  strove  for;  and  if  they 
got  it,  it  was  not  just  what  they  thought  it  was  going  to  be. 

This  is  Kedzie's  history,  and  the  history  of  the  problem 
confronting  Jim  Dyckman  and  Charity  Coe  Cheever: 
the  problem  that  Kedzie  was  going  to  seem  to  solve — as 
•one  solves  any  problem  humanly,  which  is  by  substitut- 
ing one  or  more  new  problems  in  place  of  the  old. 

This  girl  Kedzie  who  had  never  had  anything  had  one 
thing — a  fetching  pout.  Perhaps  she  had  the  pout  be- 
cause she  had  never  had  anything.  An  Elizabethan  poet 
would  have  said  of  her  upper  lip  that  a  bee  in  search  of 
honey  had  stung  it  in  anger  at  finding  it  not  the  rose  it 
seemed,  but  something  fairer. 

She  had  eyes  full  of  appeal — appeal  for  something — 
what?  Who  knows?  She  didn't.  Her  eyes  said,  " Have 
mercy  on  me;  be  kind  to  me."  The  shoddy  beaux  in 
her  home  town  said  that  Kedzie's  eyes  said,  "Kiss  me 
quick!"  They  had  obeyed  her  eyes,  and  yet  the  look  of 
appeal  was  not  quenched.  She  came  to  New  York  with 
no  plan  to  stay.  But  she  did  stay,  and  she  left  her  foot- 
prints in  many  lives,  most  deeply  in  the  life  of  Jim 
Dyckman. 


CHAPTER   II 

MISS  KEDZIE  THROPP  had  never  seen  Fifth  Avenue 
or  a  yacht  or  a  butler  or  a  glass  of  champagne  or  an 
ocean  or  a  person  of  social  prominence.  She  wanted  to 
see  them.  To  Jim  Dyckman  these  things  were  common- 
place. What  he  wanted  was  simple,  complex,  cheap, 
priceless  things — love,  home,  repose,  contentment. 

He  was  on  the  top  of  the  world,  and  he  wanted  to  get 
down  or  have  somebody  else  come  up  to  him.  Peaks  are 
by  definition  and  necessity  limited  to  small  foothold. 
Climbing  up  is  hardly  more  dangerous  than  climbing 
down.  Even  to  bend  and  lift  some  one  else  up  along- 
side involves  a  risk  of  falling  or  of  being  pushed  over- 
board. 

But  at  present  Jim  Dyckman  was  thinking  of  the  other 
girl,  Charity  Coe  Cheever,  perched  on  a  peak  as  cold  and 
high  as  his  own,  but  far  removed  from  his  reach. 

Even  the  double  seat  in  the  sleeping-car  was  too  small 
for  Jim.  He  sprawled  from  back  to  back,  slumped  and 
hunched  in  curves  and  angles  that  should  have  looked 
peasant  and  yet  somehow  had  the  opposite  effect. 

His  shoes  were  thick-soled  but  unquestionably  expen- 
sive, his  clothes  of  loose,  rough  stuff  manifestly  fashionable. 
Like  them,  he  had  a  kind  of  burly  grace.  He  had  been 
used  to  a  well-upholstered  life. 

He  was  one  of  those  giants  that  often  grow  in  rich 
men's  homes.  His  father  was  such  another,  and  his 
mother  suggested  the  Statue  of  Liberty  in  corsets  and 
on  high  heels. 

Dyckman  was  reading  a  weekly  journal  devoted  to 

7 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

horses  and  dogs,  and  reading  with  such  interest  that  he 
hardly  knew  when  the  train  stopped. 

He  did  not  see  the  woman  who  got  out  of  a  motor  and 
got  into  the  train,  and  whose  small  baggage  the  porter  put 
in  the  empty  place  opposite  his.  He  did  not  see  that  she 
leaned  into  the  aisle  and  regarded  him  with  a  pathetic 
amusement  in  her  caressing  eyes.  She  took  her  time 
about  making  herself  known;  then  she  uttered  only  a 
discreet: 

"Ahem!" 

She  put  into  the  cough  many  subtle  implications. 
Hardly  more  could  be  crowded  into  a  shrug. 

Dyckman  came  out  of  his  kennels  and  paddocks, 
blinked,  stared,  gaped.  Then  he  began  to  stand  up  by 
first  stepping  down.  He  bestrode  the  narrow  aisle  like  a 
Colossus. 

He  caught  her  two  hands,  brought  them  together, 
placed  them  in  one  of  his,  and  covered  them  with  the  other 
as  in  a  big  muff,  and  bent  close  to  pour  into  her  eyes  such 
ardor  that  for  a  moment  she  closed  hers  against  the  flame. 

Then,  as  if  in  that  silent  greeting  their  souls  had  made 
a  too  loud  and  startling  noise  of  welcome,  both  of  them 
looked  about  with  an  effect  of  surreptition  and  alarm. 

There  were  not  many  people  in  the  car,  and  they  were 
absorbed  in  their  own  books,  gossips,  or  naps.  Only  a 
few  head-tops  showing  above  the  high-backed  seats,  and 
no  eyes  or  ears. 

"Do  you  know  anybody  on  the  train?"  the  woman 
asked. 

The  man  shook  his  head  and  sank  into  the  seat  opposite 
her,  still  clinging  to  her  hands.  She  extricated  them: 

"  But  everybody  knows  you." 

He  dismissed  this  with  a  sniff  of  reproof.  Then  they 
settled  down  in  the  small  trench  and  seemed  to  take  a 
childish  delight  in  the  peril  of  their  rencounter. 

"  Lord,  but  it's  good  to  see  you!"  he  sighed,  luxuriously. 
"And  you're  stunninger  than  ever!" 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"I'm  a  sight!"  she  said. 

She  was  clad  even  more  plainly  than  he,  and  had  the 
same  spirit  of  neglectful  elegance.  She  was  big,  too,  for  a 
woman;  somewhat  lank  but  well  muscled,  and  decisive 
in  her  motions  as  if  she  normally  abounded  in  strength. 
What  grace  she  had  was  an  athlete's,  but  she  looked  over- 
trained or  undernourished.  Seeing  that  she  did  not  look 
well,  Dyckman  said: 

"How  well  you're  looking,  Charity." 

She  did  not  look  like  Charity,  either;  but  her  name 
had  been  given  to  her  before  she  was  born.  There  had 
nearly  always  been  a  girl  called  Charity  in  the  Coe  family. 
They  had  brought  the  name  with  them  from  New  England 
when  they  settled  in  Westchester  County  some  two 
hundred  years  before.  They  had  kept  little  of  their 
Puritanism  except  a  few  of  the  names. 

This  sportswoman  called  Charity  had  been  trying  to 
live  up  to  her  name,  of  late.  That  was  why  she  was 
haggard.  She  smiled  at  her  friend's  unmerited  praise. 

"Thanks,  Jim.     I  need  a  compliment  like  the  devil." 

"  Where' ve  you  been  since  you  got  back?" 

"  Up  in  the  camp,  trying  to  get  a  little  rest  and  exercise. 
But  it's  too  lonesome  nights.  I  rest  better  when  I  keep 
on  the  jump." 

"You're  in  black;  that  doesn't  mean — ?" 

She  shook  her  head.  A  light  of  eagerness  in  his,  eyes 
was  quenched,  and  he  growled : 

"Too  bad!"  He  could  afford  to  say  it,  since  the  object 
of  his  obloquy  was  alive.  If  the  person  mentioned  had 
not  been  alive,  the  phrase  he  used  would  have  been  the 
same  more  gently  intoned. 

Charity  protested :  "Shame  on  you !  I  know  you  mean 
it  for  flattery,  but  you  mustn't,  you  really  mustn't.  I'm 
in  black  for — for  Europe."  She  laughed  pitifully  at  the 
conceit. 

He  answered,  with  admiring  awe:  "I've  heard  about 
you.  You're  a  wonder;  that's  what  you  are,  Charity 

9 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Coe,  a  wonder.  Here's  a  big  hulk  like  me  loafing  around 
trying  to  kill  time,  and  a  little  tike  like  you  over  there  in 
Prance  spending  a  fortune  of  money  and  more  strength 
than  even  you've  got  in  a  slaughter-house  of  a  war  hospital. 
How  did  you  stand  it?" 

" It  wasn't  much  fun,"  she  sighed,  "but  the  nurses  can't 
feel  sorry  for  themselves  when  they  see — what  they  see." 

"I  can  imagine,"  he  said. 

But  he  could  not  have  imagined  her  as  she  daily  had 
been.  She  and  the  other  princesses  of  blood  royal  or 
bourgeois  had  been  moiling  among  the  red  human  debris 
of  war,  the  living  garbage  of  battle,  as  the  wagons  and 
trains  emptied  it  into  the  receiving  stations. 

She  and  they  had  stood  till  they  slept  standing.  They 
had  done  harder,  filthier  jobs  than  the  women  who  worked 
in  machine-shops  and  in  furrows,  while  the  male-kind 
fought.  She  had  gone  about  bedabbled  in  blood,  her  hair 
drenched  with  it.  Her  delicate  hands  had  performed 
tasks  that  would  have  been  obscene  if  they  had  not  been 
sublime  in  a  realm  of  suffering  where  nothing  was  obscene 
except  the  cause  of  it  all. 

She  sickened  at  it  more  in  retrospect  than  in  action, 
-and  tried  to  shake  it  from  her  mind  by  a  change  of  subject. 

"And  what  have  you  been  up  to,  Jim?" 

"Ah,  nothing  but  the  same  old  useless  loafing.  Been 
up  in  the  North  Woods  for  some  hunting  and  fishing,"  he 
snarled.  His  voice  always  grew  contemptuous  when  he 
spoke  of  himself,  but  idolatrous  when  he  spoke  of  her — as 
now  when  he  asked:  " I  heard  you  had  gone  back  abroad. 
But  you're  not  going,  are  you?" 

"Yes,  as  soon  as  I  get  my  nerves  a  little  steadier." 

"I  won't  let  you  go  back!"  He  checked  himself.  He 
had  no  right  to  dictate  to  her.  He  amended  to:  "You 
mustn't.  It's  dangerous  crossing,  with  all  those  sub- 
marines and  floating  mines.  You've  done  your  bit  and 
more." 

"But  there's  so  horribly  much  to  do." 

10 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"You've  done  enough.  How  many  children  have  you 
got  now?" 

"About  a  hundred." 

"Holy  mother!"  he  whispered,  with  a  profane  piety- 
"  Can  even  you  afford  as  big  a  family  as  that  ?" 

"Well,  I've  had  to  call  for  some  help." 

1 '  Let  me  chip  in  ?    Will  you  ? ' ' 

"Sure  I  will.     Go  as  far  as  you  like." 

"All  right;  it's  a  bet.  Name  the  sum,  and  I'll  mail 
it  to  you." 

"You'd  better  not  mail  me  anything,  Jim,"  she  said. 

He  blenched  and  mumbled:  "Oh,  all  right!  I'll  write 
you  a  check  now." 

"Later,"  she  said.  "I  don't  like  to  talk  much  about 
such  things,  please." 

"Promise  me  you  won't  go  back." 

She  simply  waived  the  theme:  "Let's  talk  of  some- 
thing pleasant,  if  you  don't  mind." 

"Something  pleasant,  eh?  Then  I  can't  ask  about — 
him,  I  suppose." 

"Of  course.     Why  not?" 

"How  is  the  hound? — begging  the  pardon  of  all  honest 
hounds." 

She  was  too  sure  of  her  own  feelings  toward  her  husband 
to  feel  it  necessary  to  rush  to  his  defense — against  a  former 
rival.  Her  answer  was,  "He's  well  enough  to  raise  a 
handsome  row  if  he  saw  you  and  me  together." 

He  grumbled  a  full  double-barreled  oath  and  did  not 
apologize  for  it.  She  spoke  coldly : 

"You'd  better  go  back  to  your  seat." 

She  was  as  severe  as  a  woman  can  well  be  with  a  man 
who  adores  her  and  writhes  with  jealousy  of  a  man  she 
adores. 

"I'll  be  good,  Teacher,"  he  said.  "Was  he  over  there 
with  you?" 

She  evidently  liked  to  talk  about  her  husband.  She 
brightened  as  she  spoke.  "Yes,  for  a  while.  He  drove 

ii 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

a  motor-ambulance,  you  know,  but  it  bored  him  after  a 
month  or  two.  They  wouldn't  let  him  up  to  the  firing- 
lines,  so  he  quit.  Have  you  seen  him?" 

"Once  or  twice." 

"He's  looking  well,  isn't  he?" 

' '  Yes,  confound  him !  His  handsome  features  have  been 
my  ruin." 

She  could  smile  at  that  inverted  compliment.  But 
Dyckman  began  to  think  very  hard.  He  was  suddenly 
confronted  with  one  of  the  conundrums  in  duty  which 
life  incessantly  propounds — life  that  squats  at  all  the 
crossroads  with  a  sphinxic  riddle  for  every  wayfarer. 


CHAPTER  III 

— to  say  it  again — did  not  know  enough  about 
New  York  or  the  world  to  recognize  Mrs.  Cheever 
and  Mr.  Dyckman  when  she  glanced  at  them  and  glanced 
away.  They  did  not  at  all  come  up  to  Kedzie's  idea  or 
ideal  of  what  swells  should  be,  and  she  had  not  even 
grown  up  enough  to  study  the  society  news  that  makes 
such  thrilling  reading  to  those  who  thrill  to  that  sort  of 
thing.  The  society  notes  in  the  town  paper  in  Kedzie's 
town  (Nimrim,  Missouri)  consisted  of  bombastic  chron- 
icles of  church  sociables  or  lists  of  those  present  at  surprise- 
parties. 

This  girl's  home  was  one  of  the  cheapest  in  that  cheap 
town.  Her  people  not  only  were  poor,  but  lived  more 
poorly  than  they  had  to.  They  had,  in  consequence,  a 
little  reserve  of  funds,  which  they  took  pride  in  keeping 
up.  The  three  Thropps  came  now  to  New  York  for  the 
first  time  in  their  three  lives.  They  were  almost  as 
ignorant  as  the  other  peasant  immigrants  that  steam  in 
from  the  sea. 

Adna  Thropp,  the  father,  was  a  local  claim-agent  on  a 
small  railroad.  He  spent  his  life  pitting  his  wits  against 
the  petty  greed  of  honest  farmers  and  God-fearing,  rail- 
road-hating citizens.  If  a  granger  let  his  fence  fall  down 
and  a  rickety  cow  disputed  the  right  of  way  with  a 
locomotive's  cow-catcher,  the  granger  naturally  put  in  a 
claim  for  the  destruction  of  a  prize-winning  animal  with 
a  record  as  an  amazing  milker;  also  he  added  something 
for  damage  to  the  feelings  of  the  family  in  the  loss  of  a 
household  pet.  It  was  Adna's  business  to  beat  the  shyster 

13 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

lawyers  to  the  granger  and  beat  the  granger  to  the  last 
penny.  One  of  his  best  baits  was  a  roll  of  cash  tantaliz- 
ingly  waved  in  front  of  his  victim  while  he  breathed 
proverbs  about  the  delayful  courts. 

This  being  Adna's  livelihood,  it  was  not  surprising 
that  his  habit  of  mind  gave  pennies  a  grave  importance. 
Of  course,  he  carried  his  mind  home  with  him  from  the 
office,  and  every  demand  of  his  wife  or  children  for  money 
was  again  a  test  of  ability  in  claim-agency  tactics.  He 
fought  so  earnestly  for  every  cent  he  gave  down  that  his 
dependents  felt  that  it  was  generally  better  to  go  without 
things  than  to  enter  into  a  life-and-death  struggle  for 
them  with  Pa. 

For  that  reason  Ma  Thropp  did  the  cooking,  baked  the 
•"light  bread,"  and  made  the  clothes  and  washed  them 
and  mended  them  till  they  vanished.  She  cut  the  boys' 
hair;  she  schooled  the  girls  to  help  her  in  the  kitchen 
and  at  the  sewing-machine  and  with  the  preserve-jars. 
Her  day's  work  ended  when  she  could  no  longer  see  her 
darning-needle.  It  began  as  soon  as  she  could  see  day- 
light to  light  the  fire  by.  In  winter  the  day  began  in  her 
dark,  cold  kitchen  long  before  the  sun  started  his  fire  on 
the  eastern  hills. 

She  upheld  a  standard  of  morals  as  high  as  Mount 
Everest  and  as  bleak.  She  made  home  a  region  of  ever- 
lasting chores,  rebukes,  sayings  wiser  than  tender,  com- 
plaints and  bitter  criticisms  of  husband,  children,  mer- 
chants, neighbors,  weather,  prices,  fabrics — of  everything 
on  earth  but  of  nothing  in  heaven. 

Strange  to  say,  the  children  did  not  appreciate  the  ad- 
vantages of  their  life.  The  boys  had  begun  to  earn  their 
own  money  early  by  the  splitting  of  wood  and  the  shovel- 
ing of  snow,  by  the  vending  of  soap,  and  the  conduct  of 
delivery-wagons.  They  spent  their  evenings  at  pool- 
tables  or  on  corners.  The  elder  girls  had  accepted  posi- 
tions in  the  various  emporia  of  the  village  as  soon  as  they 
could.  They  counted  the  long  hours  of  the  shop  life 

14 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

as  an  escape  from  worse.  Their  free  evenings  were  not 
devoted  to  self-improvement.  They  did  not  turn  out  to 
be  really  very  good  girls.  They  were  up  to  all  sorts  of 
village  mischief  and  shabby  frivolity.  Their  poor  mother 
could  not  account  for  it.  She  could  scold  them  well,, 
but  she  could  not  scold  them  good. 

The  daughter  on  the  train,  the  youngest — named 
Kedzie  after  an  aunt  who  was  the  least  poor  of  the  relatives 
— was  just  growing  up  into  a  similar  career.  Her  highest 
prayer  was  that  her  path  might  lead  her  to  a  clerkship 
in  a  candy-shop.  Then  this  miracle!  Her  father  an- 
nounced that  he  was  going  to  New  York. 

Adna  was  always  traveling  on  the  railroad,  but  he  had 
never  traveled  far.  To  undertake  New  York  was  hardly 
less  remarkable  than  to  run  over  to  the  moon  for  a  few 
days. 

When  he  brought  the  news  home  he  could  hardly  get, 
up  the  front  steps  with  it.  When  he  announced  it  at  the^ 
table,  and  tried  to  be  careless,  his  hand  trembled  till  the 
saucerful  of  coffee  at  his  quivering  lips  splashed  over  on 
the  clean  red-plaid  table-cloth. 

The  occasion  of  Thropp's  call  to  New  York  was  this: 
he  had  joined  a  "benevolent  order"  of  the  Knights  of 
Something-or-other  in  his  early  years  and  had  risen  high 
in  the  chapter  in  his  home  town.  When  one  of  the  mem- 
bers died,  the  others  attended  his  funeral  in  full  regalia, 
consisting  of  each  individual's  Sunday  clothes,  enhanced 
with  a  fringed  sash  and  lappets.  Also  there  was  a  sword 
to  carry.  The  advantage  of  belonging  to  the  order  was 
that  the  member  got  the  funeral  for  nothing  and  his. 
wife  got  the  further  consolation  of  a  sum  of  money. 

Mrs.  Thropp  bore  her  neighbors  no  more  ill-will  than 
they  deserved,  but  she  did  enjoy  their  funerals.  They 
gave  her  husband  an  excuse  for  his  venerable  silk  hat  and 
his  gilded  glave.  Sometimes  as  she  took  her  hands  out 
of  the  dough  and  dried  them  on  her  apron  to  fasten 
his  sash  about  him,  she  felt  all  the  glory  of  a  medieval 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

countess  buckling  the  armor  on  her  doughty  earl.     She 
had  never  heard  of  such  persons,  but  she  knew  their  epic 

uplift. 

Now,  Mr.  Thropp  had  paid  his  dues  and  his  insurance 
premiums  for  years  and  years.  They  were  his  one 
extravagance.  Also  he  had  persuaded  Mrs.  Thropp' s 
brother  Sol  to  do  the  same.  Sol  had  died  recently  and 
left  his  insurance  money  to  Mrs.  Thropp.  Sol's  own  wife, 
after  cherishing  long-deferred  hopes  of  spending  that 
money  herself,  had  been  hauled  away  first.  She  never 
got  that  insurance  money.  Neither  did  any  one  else; 
the  central  office  in  New  York  failed  to  pay  up. 

The  annual  convention  was  about  to  be  held  in  the 
metropolis,  and  there  was  to  be  a  tremendous  investigation 
of  the  insurance  scandal.  Adna  was  elected  the  delegate 
of  'ihe  Nimrim  chapter,  for  he  was  known  to  be  a  demon 
in  a  money-fight. 

And  this  was  the  glittering  news  that  Adna  brought 
home.  Small  wonder  it  spilled  his  coffee.  And  that 
wife  of  his  not  only  had  to  go  and  yell  at  him  about  a 
little  coffee-stain,  but  she  had  to  announce  that  she 
hardly  saw  how  she  could  get  ready  to  go  right  away — 
and  who  was  to  look  after  those  children  ? 

Adna's  jaw  fell.  Perhaps  he  had  ventured  on  dreams  of 
being  set  free  in  New  York  all  by  himself.  She  soon 
woke  him.  She  said  she  wouldn't  no  more  allow  him  loose 
in  that  wicked  place  than  she  would — well,  she  didn't 
know  what!  He  could  get  a  pass  for  self  and  wife  as 
easy  as  shoo  tin'.  Adna  yielded  to  the  inevitable  with  a 
sorry  grace  and  told  her  to  come  along  if  she'd  a  mind  to. 

And  then  came  a  still,  small  voice  from  daughter 
Kedzie.  She  spoke  with  a  menacing  sweetness:  "Goody, 
goody!  Besides  seeing  New  York,  I  won't  have  to  go  to 
school  for —  How  long  we  goin'  to  be  gone,  poppa?" 

Both  parents  stared  at  her  aghast  and  told  her  to  hush 
her  mouth.  It  was  a  very  pretty  mouth  even  in  anger, 
and  Kedzie  declined  to  hush  it.  She  said: 

16 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Well,  if  you  two  think  you're  goin'  to  leave  me  home, 
you  got  another  think  comin' — that's  all  I  got  to  say." 
She  betrayed  an  appalling  stubbornness,  a  fiendish  deter- 
mination to  subdue  her  parents  or  talk  them  to  death. 
"  I  never  get  to  go  any  place,"  she  wailed.  "  I  never  been 
anywhere  or  seen  anything  or  had  anything;  I  might  as 
well  be  a  bump  on  a  log.  And  now  you're  goin'  to  New 
York.  I'd  sooner  go  there  than  to  heaven.  It's  my  first 
chance  to  see  a  city,  and  I  just  tell  you  right  here  and  now, 
I'm  not  goin'  to  lose  it !  You  take  me  or  you'll  be  mighty 
sorry.  I'll— I'll— " 

"You'll  what?"  her  father  sneered.  What,  after  all, 
could  a  young  girl  do  ? 

"I'll  run  off,  that's  what  I'll  do!  And  disgrace  you! 
I'll  run  away  and  you'll  never  see  me  again.  If  you're 
mean  enough  to  not  take  me,  I'm  mean  enough  to  do 
something  desprut.  You'll  see!" 

Her  father  realized  that  there  were  several  things  a 
young  girl  could  do  to  punish  her  parents.  Kedzie 
frightened  hers  with  her  fanatic  zeal.  They  gave  in  at 
last  from  sheer  terror.  Immediately  she  became  almost 
intolerably  rapturous.  She  shrieked  and  jumped ;  and  she 
kissed  and  hugged  every  member  of  the  household,  includ- 
ing the  dogs  and  the  cats.  She  must  go  down-town  and 
torment  her  girl  friends  with  her  superiority  and  she 
could  hardly  live  through  the  hours  that  intervened  before 
the  train  started. 

The  Thropps  rode  all  day  in  the  day-coach  to  Chicago, 
and  Kedzie  loved  every  cinder  that  flew  into  her  gorgeous 
eyes.  Now  and  then  she  slept  curled  up  kittenwise  on  a 
seat,  and  the  motion  of  the  train  lulled  her  as  with  angelic 
pinions.  She  dreamed  impossible  glories  in  unheard-of 
cities. 

But  her  mother  bulked  large  and  had  been  too  long 
accustomed  to  her  own  rocking-chair  to  rest  in  a  day- 
coach.  She  reached  Chicago  in  a  state  of  collapse.  She 

17 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

told  Adna  that  she  would  have  to  travel  the  rest  of  the 
way  in  a  sleeper  or  in  a  baggage-car,  for  she  just  naturally 
had  to  lay  down.  So  Adna  paid  for  two  berths.  It  weak- 
ened him  like  a  hemorrhage. 

Kedzie's  first  sorrow  was  in  leaving  Chicago.  They 
changed  trains  there,  bouncing  across  the  town  in  a 
bus.  That  transit  colored  Kedzie's  soul  like  dragging 
a  ribbon  through  a  vat  of  dye.  Henceforth  she  was 
of  a  city  hue. 

She  was  enamoured  of  every  cobblestone,  and  she  loved 
every  man,  woman,  horse,  and  motor  she  passed.  She 
tried  to  flirt  with  the  tall  buildings.  She  was  afraid  to 
leave  Chicago  lest  she  never  get  to  New  York,  or  find  it 
inferior.  She  begged  to  be  left  there.  It  was  plenty 
good  enough  for  her. 

But  once  aboard  the  sleeping-car  she  was  blissful  again, 
and  embarrassed  her  mother  and  father  with  her  adora- 
tion. In  all  sincerity,  Kedzie  mechanically  worshiped 
people  who  got  things  for  her,  and  loathed  people  who 
forbade  things  or  took  them  away. 

She  horrified  the  porter  by  calling  him  "Mister" — 
almost  as  much  as  her  parents  scandalized  him  the  next 
day  by  eating  their  meals  out  of  a  filing-cabinet  of  shoe- 
boxes  compiled  by  Mrs.  Thropp.  But  it  was  all  picnic 
to  Kedzie.  Fortunately  for  her  repose,  she  never  knew 
that  there  was  a  dining-car  attached. 

The  ordeal  of  a  night  in  a  sleeping-car  coffin  was  to 
Kedzie  an  experience  of  faery.  She  laughed  aloud  when 
she  bumped  her  head,  and  getting  out  of  and  into  her 
clothes  was  a  fascinating  exercise  in  contortion.  She  was 
entranced  by  the  wash-room  with  its  hot  and  cold  water 
and  its  basin  of  apparent  silver,  whose  contents  did  not 
have  to  be  lifted  and  splashed  into  a  slop-jar,  but  magic- 
ally emptied  themselves  at  the  raising  of  a  medallion. 

She  had  not  worn  herself  out  with  enthusiasm  by  the 
time  the  first  night  was  spent  and  half  the  next  day.  She 
pressed  her  nose  against  the  window  and  ached  with  regret 

18 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

at  the  hurry  with  which  towns  and  cities  were  whipped 
away  from  her  eyes. 

She  did  not  care  for  grass  and  trees  and  cows  and  dull 
villages,  but  she  thrilled  at  the  beauty  of  big,  dark  rail- 
road stations  and  noble  street-cars  and  avenues  paved  with 
exquisite  asphalt. 

The  train  was  late  in  arriving  at  New  York,  and  it  was 
nearer  ten  than  eight  when  it  roared  across  the  Harlem 
River.  Kedzie  was  glad  of  the  display,  for  she  saw  the 
town  first  as  one  great  light-spangled  banner. 

The  car  seemed  to  be  drawn  right  through  people's 
rooms.  Everybody  lived  up-stairs.  She  caught  glimpses 
of  kitchens  on  the  fourth  floor  and  she  thought  this 
adorable,  except  that  it  would  be  a  job  carrying  the 
wood  all  the  way  up. 

The  streets  went  by  like  the  glistening  spokes  of  a 
swift  wheel.  They  were  packed  with  interesting  sights. 
No  wonder  most  of  the  inhabitants  were  either  in  the 
streets  or  leaning  out  of  the  windows  looking  down.  Here 
it  was  ten  o'clock,  and  not  a  sign  of  anybody's  having 
thought  of  going  to  bed.  New  York  was  a  sensible  place. 
She  liked  New  York. 

But  the  train  seemed  to  quicken  its  pace  out  of  mere 
spitefulness  just  as  they  reached  wonderful  market  streets 
with  flaring  lights  over  little  carts  all  filled  with  things 
to  buy. 

When  the  wonder  world  was  blotted  from  view  by  the 
tunnel  it  frightened  her  at  first  with  its  long,  dark  noise 
and  the  flip-flops  of  light.  Then  a  brief  glimpse  of  towers 
and  walls.  Then  the  dark  station.  And  they  were 
There! 


CHAPTER  IV 

JIM  DYCKMAN  had  always  loved  Charity  Coe,  but 
he  let  another  man  marry  her — a  handsomer,  livelier, 
more  entertaining  man  with  whom  Dyckman  was  afraid  to 
compete.    A  mingling  of  laziness  and  of  modesty  disarmed 
him. 

As  soon  as  he  saw  how  tempestuously  Peter  Cheever 
began  his  courtship,  Dyckman  withdrew  from  Miss  Coe's 
entourage.  When  she  asked  him  why,  he  said,  frankly: 

"Pete  Cheever's  got  me  beat.  I  know  when  I'm 
licked." 

Pete's  courtship  was  what  the  politicians  call  a  whirl- 
wind campaign.  Charity  was  Mrs.  Cheever  before  she 
knew  it.  Her  friends  continued  to  call  her  Charity  Coe, 
but  she  was  very  much  married. 

Cheever  was  a  man  of  shifting  ardors.  His  soul  was 
rilled  with  automatic  fire-extinguishers.  He  flared  up 
quickly,  but  when  his  temperature  reached  a  certain 
degree,  sprinklers  of  cold  water  opened  in  his  ceiling  and 
doused  the  blaze,  leaving  him  unharmed  and  hardly 
scorched.  It  had  been  so  with  his  loves. 

After  a  brief  and  blissful  honeymoon,  Peter  Cheever's 
capricious  soul  kindled  at  the  thought  of  an  exploration 
of  war-filled  Europe.  His  blushing  bride  was  a  hurdle- 
rider,  too,  and  loved  a  risk-neck  venture.  She  insisted  on 
going  with  him. 

He  accepted  the  steering-wheel  of  a  motor-ambulance 
and  left  his  bride  to  her  own  devices  while  he  shot  along 
the  poplar-plumed  roads  of  France  at  lightning  speed. 

Charity  drifted  into  hospital  service.     Her  first  soldier 
20 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

the  tortured  victim  of  a  gas-attack,  was  bewailing  the  fate 
of  his  motherless  child.  Charity  brought  a  smile  to  what 
lips  he  had  by  whispering: 

"  I  am  rich.     I  will  adopt  your  little  girl." 

It  was  the  first  time  she  had  ever  boasted  of  being  rich. 
The  man  died,  whispering:  "Merci,  Madame!  Merci, 
Madame!"  Another  father  was  writhing  in  the  premature 
hell  of  leaving  a  shy  little  unprotected  boy  to  starve. 
Charity  promised  to  care  for  him,  too. 

At  a  committee  meeting,  a  week  later,  she  learned  of  a 
horde  of  war  orphans  and  divided  them  up  with  Muriel 
Schuyler,  Mrs.  Perry  Merithew,  and  other  American 
angels  abroad. 

When  Charity's  husband  wearied  of  being  what  he 
called  "chauffeur  to  a  butcher- wagon,"  he  decided  that 
America  was  a  pretty  good  country,  after  all.  But 
Charity  could  not  tear  herself  away  from  her  privilege  of 
suffering,  even  to  follow  her  bridegroom  home.  He  had 
cooled  to  her  also,  and  he  made  no  protest.  He  promised 
to  come  back  for  her.  He  did  not  come.  He  cabled 
often  and  devotedly,  telling  her  how  lonely  he  was  and 
how  busy.  She  answered  that  she  hoped  he  was  lonely, 
but  she  knew  he  was  busy.  He  would  be! 

When  Cheever  first  returned,  Jim  Dyckman  saw  him  at 
a  club.  He  saw  him  afterward  in  a  restaurant  with  one 
of  those  astonishing  animals  which  the  moving  pictures 
have  hardly  caricatured  as  a  "vampire."  This  one  would 
have  been  impossible  if  she  had  not  been  visible.  She 
was  intensely  visible. 

Jim  Dyckman  felt  that  her  mere  presence  in  a  public 
restaurant  was  offensive.  To  think  of  her  as  displacing 
Charity  Coe  in  Cheever's  attentions  was  maddening. 
He  understood  for  the  first  time  why  people  of  a  sort 
write  anonymous  letters.  He  could  not  stoop  to  that 
degradation,  and  yet  he  wondered  if,  after  all,  it  would  be 
as  degrading  to  play  the  informer  as  to  be  an  unprotesting 
and  therefore  accessory  spectator  and  confidant. 

21 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Gossip  began  to  deal  in  the  name  of  Cheever.  One  day 
at  a  club  the  he-old-maid  "Prissy"  Atterbury  cackled: 

"  I  saw  Pete  Cheever  at  a  cabaret- 
Jim  asked,  anxiously,  "Was  he  alone?" 

"Nearly." 

"What  do  you  mean — nearly  alone?" 

"Well,  what  he  had  with  him  is  my  idea  of  next  to 
nothing.  I  wonder  what  sinking  ship  Cheever  rescued 
her  from.  They  tell  me  she  was  a  cabaret  dancer  named 
Zada  L'Etoile — that's  French  for  Sadie  Starr,  I  suppose." 

Dyckman's  obsession  escaped  him. 

"Somebody  ought  to  write  his  wife  about  it." 

"That  would  be  nice!"  cried  Prissy.  "Oh,  very,  very 
nice!  It  would  be  better  to  notify  the  Board  of  Health. 
But  it  would  be  still  better  if  his  wife  would  come  home 
and  mind  her  own  business.  These  Americans  who  hang 
about  the  edges  of  the  war,  fishing  for  sensations,  make  me 
very  tired — oh,  very,  very  tired." 

Prissy  never  knew  how  near  he  was  to  annihilation. 
Jim  had  to  hold  one  fist  with  the  other.  He  was  afraid 
to  yield  to  his  impulse  to  smash  Prissy  in  the  droop  of  his 
mustache.  Prissy  was  too  frail  to  be  slugged.  That 
was  his  chief  protection  in  his  gossip-mongering  career. 
Besides,  it  is  a  questionable  courtesy  for  a  former  beau  to 
defend  another  man's  wife's  name,  and  Dyckman  proved 
his  devotion  to  Charity  best  by  leaving  her  slanderer 
unrebuked. 

It  was  no  anonymous  letter  that  brought  Charity  Coe 
home.  It  was  the  breakdown  of  her  powers  of  resistance. 
Even  the  soldiers  had  to  be  granted  vacations  from  the 
trenches;  and  so  an  eminent  American  surgeon  in  charge 
of  the  hospital  she  adorned  finally  drove  Mrs.  Cheever 
back  to  America.  He  disguised  his  solicitude  with 
brutality;  he  told  her  he  did  not  want  her  to  die  on  their 
hands. 

When  Charity  came  back,  Cheever  met  her  and  cele- 

22 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

brated  her  return.  She  was  a  new  sensation  to  him  again 
for  a  week  or  two,  but  her  need  of  seclusion  and  quiet 
drove  him  frantic  and  he  grew  busy  once  more.  He  re- 
called Miss  L'Etoile  from  the  hardships  of  dancing  for  her 
supper.  Unlike  Charity,  Zada  never  failed  to  be  exciting. 
Cheever  was  never  sure  what  she  would  do  or  say  or  throw 
next.  She  was  delicious. 

When  Dyckman  learned  of  Cheever's  extra  establish- 
ment it  enraged  him.  He  had  let  Cheever  push  him  aside 
and  carry  off  Charity  Coe,  and  now  he  must  watch 
Cheever  push  Charity  Coe  aside  and  carry  on  the  next 
choice  of  his  whims. 

To  Dyckman,  Charity  was  perfection.  To  lose  her  and 
find  her  in  the  ash-barrel  with  Cheever's  other  discarded 
dolls  was  intolerable.  Yet  what  could  Dyckman  do  about 
it?  He  dared  not  even  meet  Charity.  He  hated  her 
husband,  and  he  knew  that  her  husband  hated  him. 
Cheever  somehow  realized  the  dogged  fidelity  of  Dyck- 
man's  love  for  Charity  and  resented  it — feared  it  as  a 
menace,  perhaps. 

Dyckman  had  two  or  three  narrow  escapes  from  run- 
ning into  Charity,  and  he  finally  took  to  his  heels.  He 
lingered  in  the  Canadian  wilds  till  he  thought  it  safe  to 
return.  And  now  she  chanced  to  board  the  same  train. 
The  problem  he  had  run  away  from  had  cornered  him. 

He  had  cherished  a  sneaking  hope  that  she  would  learn 
the  truth  somehow  before  he  met  her.  He  was  not  sure 
what  she  ought  to  do  when  she  learned  it.  He  was  sure 
that  what  she  would  do  would  be  the  one  right  thing. 

Yet  he  realized  from  her  placid  manner  of  parrying  his 
threats  at  her  husband  that  she  still  loved  the  wretch  and 
trusted  him.  It  was  up  to  Jim  to  tell  her  what  he  knew 
about  Cheever.  He  felt  that  he  ought  to.  Yet  how  could 
he? 

It  was  hideous  that  she  should  sit  there  smiling  toler- 
antly at  a  critic  of  her  infernal  husband  as  serenely  as  a 
priestess  who  is  patient  with  an  unenlightened  skeptic. 

23 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

It  was  atrocious  that  Cheever  should  be  permitted  to 
prosper  with  this  scandal  unrebuked,  unpunished,  act- 
ually unsnubbed,  accepting  the  worship  of  an  angel  like 
Charity  Coe  and  repaying  it  with  black  treachery!  To 
keep  silent  was  to  co-operate  in  the  evil — to  pander  to  it. 
Dyckman  thought  it  was  hideous.  The  word  he  thought 
was  "rotten"! 

He  actually  opened  his  mouth  to  break  the  news.  His 
voice  mutinied.  He  could  not  say  a  word. 

Something  throttled  him.  It  was  that  strange  instinct 
which  makes  criminals  of  every  degree  feel  that  no  crime 
is  so  low  but  that  tattling  on  it  is  a  degree  lower. 

Dyckman  tried  to  assuage  his  self-contempt  by  the 
excuse  that  Charity  was  not  in  the  mood  or  in  the  place 
where  such  a  disclosure  should  be  made.  Some  day  he 
would  tell  her  and  then  ask  permission  to  kill  the  black- 
guard for  her. 

The  train  had  scuttered  across  many  a  mile  while  he 
meditated  the  answer  to  the  latest  riddle.  His  thoughts 
were  so  turbulent  that  Charity  finally  intruded. 

"What's  on  your  mind,  Jim?" 

"Oh,  I  was  just  thinking." 

"What  about?" 

"Oh,  things." 

Suddenly  he  reached  out  and  seized  the  hand  that 
drooped  at  her  knee  like  a  wilted  lily.  He  wrung  her 
fingers  with  a  vigor  that  hurt  her,  then  he  said,  "  Got  any 
dogs  to  show  this  season?" 

She  laughed  at  the  violent  abruptness  of  this,  and  said, 
"I  think  I'll  give  an  orphan-show  instead." 

He  shook  his  head  in  despairing  admiration  and  leaned 
back  to  watch  the  landscape  at  the  window.  So  did  she. 
On  the  windows  their  own  reflections  were  cast  in  trans- 
parent films  of  light.  Each  wraith  watched  the  other, 
seeming  to  read  the  mood  and  need  no  speech. 

Dyckman's  mind  kept  shuttling  over  and  over  the  same 
rails  of  thought,  like  a  switch-engine  eternally  shunting 

24 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

cars  from  one  track  to  another.  His  very  temples 
throbbed  with  the  clickety-click  of  the  train.  At  last  he 
groaned  : 

"This  world's  too  much  for  me.     It's  got  me  guessing." 

He  seemed  to  be  so  impressed  with  his  original  and 
profound  discovery  of  life's  unanswerable  complexity  that 
Charity  smiled,  the  same  sad,  sweet  smile  with  which  she 
pored  on  the  book  of  sorrow  or  listened  to  the  questions 
of  her  orphans  who  asked  where  their  fathers  had  gone. 

She  thought  of  Jim  Dyckman  as  one  of  her  orphans. 
There  was  a  good  deal  of  the  mother  in  her  love  of  him. 
For  she  did  love  him.  And  she  would  have  married  him 
if  he  had  asked  her  earlier — before  Peter  Cheever  swept 
over  her  horizon  and  carried  her  away  with  his  zest  and 
his  magnificence. 

She  rebuked  herself  for  thinking  of  Jim  Dyckman  as  an 
orphan.  He  had  a  father  and  mother  who  doted  on  him. 
He  had  wealth  of  his  own  and  millions  to  come.  He  had 
health  and  brawn  enough  for  two.  What  right  had  he  to 
anybody's  pity  ?  Yet  she  pitied  him. 

And  he  pitied  her. 

And  on  this  same  train,  in  this  same  car,  unnoticed 
and  unnoticing,  sat  Kedzie. 

Jim  and  Charity  grew  increasingly  embarrassed  as  the 
train  drew  into  New  York.  Charity  was  uncertain 
whether  her  husband  would  meet  her  or  not.  Jim  did 
not  want  to  leave  her  to  get  home  alone.  She  did  not 
want  her  husband  to  find  her  with  Jim. 

Cheever  had  excuse  enough  in  his  own  life  for  suspecting 
other  people.  He  had  always  disliked  Jim  Dyckman 
because  Dyckman  had  always  disliked  him,  and  Jim's 
transparent  face  had  announced  the  fact  with  all  the 
clarity  of  an  illuminated  signboard. 

Also  Charity  had  loved  Jim  before  she  met  Cheever, 
and  she  made  no  secret  of  being  fond  of  him  still.  In 
their  occasional  quarrels,  Cheever  had  taunted  her  with 
wishing  she  had  married  Jim,  and  she  had  retorted  that 

25 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

she  had  indeed  made  a  big  mistake  in  her  choice.  Lovers 
say  such  things — for  lack  of  other  weapons  in  such  com- 
bats as  lovers  inevitably  wage,  if  only  for  exercise. 

Charity  did  not  really  mean  what  she  said,  but  at  times 
Cheever  thought  she  did.  He  had  warned  her  to  keep 
away  from  Dyckman  and  keep  Dyckman  away  from  her 
or  there  would  be  trouble.  Cheever  was  a  powerful 
athlete  and  a  boxer  who  made  minor  professionals  look 
ridiculous.  Dyckman  was  bigger,  but  not  so  clever.  A 
battle  between  the  two  stags  over  the  forlorn  doe  would 
be  a  horrible  spectacle.  Charity  was  not  the  sort  of 
woman  that  longs  for  such  a  conflict  of  suitors.  Just  now 
she  had  seen  too  much  of  the  fruits  of  male  combat. 
She  was  sick  of  hatred  and  its  devastation. 

So  Charity  begged  Dyckman  to  get  off  at  One  Hundred 
and  Twenty-fifth  Street,  but  he  would  not  show  himself 
so  poltroon.  He  answered,  "I'd  like  to  see  myself!" 
meaning  that  he  would  not. 

She  retorted,  "Then  I'll  get  off  there  myself." 

"Then  I'll  get  off  there  with  you,"  he  grumbled. 

Charity  flounced  back  into  her  seat  with  a  gasp  of 
mitigated  disgust.  The  mitigation  was  the  irresistible 
thrill  of  his  devotion.  She  had  a  husband  who  would 
desert  her  and  a  cavalier  who  would  not.  It  was  difficult 
not  to  forgive  the  cavalier  a  little. 

Yet  it  would  have  been  better  if  he  had  obeyed  her 
command  or  she  her  impulse.  Or  would  it  have  been? 
The  worst  might  always  have  been  worse. 


CHAPTER  V 

WHEN  Kedzie  was  angry  she  called  her  father  an 
"old  country  Jake."  Even  she  did  not  know  how 
rural  he  was  or  how  he  had  oppressed  the  sophisticated 
travelers  in  the  smoking-room  of  the  sleeping-car  with  his 
cocksure  criticisms  of  cities  that  he  had  never  seen.  He 
had  condemned  New  York  with  all  the  mercilessness  of  a 
small-town  superiority,  and  he  had  told  funny  stories  that 
were  as  funny  as  the  moss-bearded  cypresses  in  a  lone 
bayou.  While  he  was  denouncing  New  York  as  the  home 
of  ignorance  and  vice,  the  other  men  were  having  sport 
with  him — sport  so  cruel  that  only  his  own  cruelty  blinded 
him  to  it. 

When  the  porter  summoned  the  passengers  to  pass 
under  the  whisk  broom,  Adna  remembered  that  he  had 
not  settled  upon  his  headquarters  in  New  York,  and 
he  said  to  a  man  on  whom  he  had  inflicted  a  vile  cigar: 
"Say,  I  forgot  to  ask  you.  What's  a  good  hotel  in  New 
York  that  ain't  too  far  from  the  railroad  and  don't  rob 
you  of  your  last  nickel?  Or  is  they  one?" 

One  of  the  smoking-room  humorists  mocked  his  accent 
and  ventured  a  crude  jape. 

"You  can  save  the  price  of  a  hack-ride  by  going  to 
Mrs.  Biltmore's  new  boarding-house.  It's  right  across  the 
road  from  the  depot." 

If  Adna  had  been  as  keen  as  he  thought  he  was,  or  if 
the  porter  had  not  alarmed  him  just  then  by  his  affection- 
ate interest,  even  Adna  would  have  noted  the  grins  on  the 
faces  of  the  men. 

But  he  broke  the  porter's  heart  by  dodging  the  whisk 
broom  and  hustling  his  excited  family  to  their  feet.  They 

27 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

were  permitted  to  hale  their  own  hand-baggage  to  the 
platform,  where  two  red-capped  Kaffirs  reached  for  it 
together.  There  was  danger  of  an  altercation,  but  the 
bigger  of  the  two  frightened  the  smaller  away  by  snapping 
his  shiny  eyeballs  alarmingly.  The  smaller  one  took  a 
second  look  at  Adna  and  retreated  with  scorn,  snickering : 

"You  kin  have  him." 

The  other,  who  was  a  good  loser  at  craps  or  tips,  re- 
examined  his  clients,  flickered  his  eyelids,  and  started  down 
the  platform  to  have  it  over  with  as  soon  as  possible.  He 
paused  to  say: 

"Where  you-all  want  to  go  to — a  taxicab?" 

Adna,  who  was  a  little  nertous  about  his  property, 
answered  with  some  asperity: 

"No,  we  don't  need  any  hack  to  git  to  Biltmore's." 

"Nossah!"  said  the  red-cap. 

"Right  across  the  street,  ain't  it?" 

"Yassah!"  The  porter  chuckled.  The  mention  of  the 
family's  destination  had  cheered  him  a  little.  He  might 
get  a  tip,  after  all.  You  couldn't  always  sometimes  tell  by 
a  man's  clothes  how  he  tipped. 

While  Kedzie  stood  watching  the  red-cap  bestow  the 
various  parcels  under  his  arms  and  along  his  fingers,  a 
man  bumped  into  her  and  murmured: 

"Sorry!" 

She  turned  and  said,  "Huh?" 

He  did  not  look  around.  She  did  not  see  his  face. 
It  was  the  first  conversation  between  Jim  Dyckman  and 
Kedzie  Thropp. 

Charity  Coe,  when  the  train  stopped,  had  flatly  refused 
to  walk  up  the  station  platform  with  Jim  Dyckman.  She 
had  not  only  virtue,  but  St.  Paul's  idea  of  the  impor- 
tance of  avoiding  even  the  appearance  of  evil.  She  would 
not  budge  from  the  car  till  Jim  had  gone.  He  was  forced 
to  leave  her  at  last. 

He  swung  through  the  crowd  in  a  fury,  jostling  and 
begging  pardon  and  staring  over  the  heads  of  the  pack  to 

28 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

see  if  Cheever  were  at  the  barrier.   He  jolted  Kedzie  Thropp 
among  others,  apologized,  and  thought  no  more  of  her. 

Cheever  had  not  come  to  meet  his  wife.  Her  telegram 
was  waiting  for  him  at  his  official  home;  he  was  at  his 
other  residence. 

When  Dyckman  saw  that  no  one  was  there  to  welcome 
the  fagged-out  Charity,  he  paused  and  waited  for  her  him- 
self. When  Charity  came  along  her  anxious  eyes  found 
nobody  she  knew  except  Dyckman.  The  disappointment 
she  revealed  hurt  him  profoundly.  ^But  he  would  not  be 
shaken  off  again.  He  turned  in  at  her  side  and  walked 
along,  and  the  two  porters  with  their  luggage  walked  side 
by  side. 

Prissy  Atterbury  was  hurrying  to  a  train  that  would  take 
him  for  a  week-end  visitation  to  people  who  hated  him  but 
needed  him  to  cancel  a  female  bore  with.  As  Prissy  saw 
it  and  described  it,  Dyckman  came  into  the  big  waiting- 
room  alone,  looked  about  everywhere,  paused,  turned 
back  for  Charity  Coe ;  then  walked  away  with  her,  followed 
by  their  twinned  porters.  Prissy  said  "Aha!"  behind  his 
big  mustaches  and  stared  till  he  nearly  lost  his  train. 

Atterbury  had  gained  a  new  topic  to  carry  with  him, 
a  topic  of  such  fertile  resources  that  it  went  far  to  pay 
his  board  and  lodging.  He  made  a  snowball  out  of  the 
clean  reputations  of  Charity  and  Jim  and  started  it  down- 
hill, gathering  dirt  and  momentum  as  it  rolled.  It  was 
bound  to  roll  before  long  into  the  ken  of  Peter  Cheever, 
and  he  was  not  the  man  to  tolerate  any  levity  in  a  wife. 
Cheever  might  be  as  wicked  as  Caesar,  but  his  wife  must 
be  as  Caesar's. 

When  Charity  Coe  was  garrulous  and  inordinately  gay, 
Jim  Dyckman,  who  had  known  her  from  childhood,  knew 
that  she  was  trying  to  rush  across  the  thin  ice  over  some 
deep  grief. 

When  he  saw  how  hurt  she  was  at  not  being  met,  and 
he  insisted  on  taking  her  home,  she  chattered  and  snickered 
hysterically  at  his  most  stupid  remarks.  So  he  said: 

29 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Don't  let  him  break  your  heart  in  you,  old  girl." 

She  laughed  uproariously,  almost  vulgarly,  over  that, 
and  answered:  "Me?  Let  a  man  break  my  heart? 
That's  very  likely,  isn't  it?" 

"Very!"  Jim  groaned. 

When  they  reached  her  magnificent  home  it  had  a 
deserted  look. 

"Wait  here  a  minute,"  said  Charity  when  Jim  got  out 
to  help  her  out.  She  ran  up  the  steps  and  rang  the  bell. 
There  was  a  delay  before  the  second  man  in  an  improvised 
toilet  opened  the  door  to  her  and  expressed  as  much  sur- 
prise as  delight  at  seeing  her.  "Didn't  Mr.  Cheever  tell 
you  I  was  coming  home?"  she  gasped. 

"We  haven't  seen  him,  ma'am.  There's  a  telegram 
here  for  him,  but  of  course — " 

Charity  was  still  in  a  frantic  mood.  She  wanted  to 
escape  brooding,  at  all  costs.  She  ran  back  to  where  Jim 
waited  at  the  motor  door. 

"Got  any  date  to-night,  Jim?"  she  demanded.  He 
shook  his  head  dolefully,  and  she  said:  "Go  home,  jump 
into  your  dancing-shoes,  and  come  back  for  me.  I'll 
throw  on  something  light  and  you  can  take  me  somewhere 
to  dance.  I'll  go  crazy  mad,  insane,  if  you  don't.  I  can't 
endure  this  empty  house.  You  don't  mind  my  making  a 
convenience  of  you,  do  you,  Jim?" 

"I  love  it,  Charity  Coe,"  he  groaned.  He  reached  for 
her  hand,  but  she  was  fleeting  up  the  steps.  He  crept 
into  the  car  and  went  to  his  home,  flung  off  his  traveling- 
togs,  passed  through  a  hot  tub  and  a  cold  shower  into 
evening  clothes,  and  hastened  away. 

Charity  kept  him  waiting  hardly  a  moment.  She 
floated  down  the  stairs  in  a  something  fleecily  volatile, 
and  he  said: 

"You  look  like  a  dandelion  puff." 

"That's  right,  tell  me  some  nice  things,"  she  said. 
She  did  not  tell  the  servant  where  she  was  going.  She  did 
not  know.  She  hardly  cared. 

30 


CHAPTER  VI 

TO  Kedzie  Thropp  the  waiting-room  of  the  Grand 
Central  Terminal  was  the  terminus  of  human 
splendor.  It  was  the  waiting-room  to  heaven.  And  in- 
deed it  is  a  majestic  chamber. 

The  girl  walked  with  her  face  high,  staring  at  the  loftily 
columned  recesses  with  the  bay-trees  set  between  the 
huge  square  pillars,  and  above  all  the  feigned  blue  sky 
and  the  monsters  of  the  zodiac  in  powdered  gold. 

Kedzie  could  hardly  breathe — it  was  so  beautiful,  so 
much  superior  to  the  plain  every-night  sky  she  was  used 
to,  with  stars  of  tin  instead  of  gold  like  these. 

Even  her  mother  said  "Well!"  and  Adna  paid  the 
architects  the  tribute  of  an  exclamation:  "Humph! 
So  this  is  the  new  station  we  was  readin'  about.  Some 
bigger  'n  ours  at  home,  eh,  Kedzie?" 

But  Kedzie  was  not  there.  They  had  lost  her  and  had 
to  turn  back.  She  was  in  a  trance.  When  they  snatched 
her  down  to  earth  again  and  pulled  her  through  the 
crowds  she  began  to  adore  the  people.  They  were 
dressed  in  unbelievable  splendor — millions,  she  guessed,  in 
far  better  than  the  best  Sunday  best  she  had  ever  seen. 
She  wondered  if  she  would  ever  have  nice  clothes.  She 
vowed  that  she  would  if  she  had  to  murder  somebody  to 
get  them. 

The  porter  led  the  way  from  the  vastitude  of  a  corridor 
under  the  street  and  through  vast  empty  rooms  and  up  a 
stairway  and  down  a  few  steps  and  through  the  first 
squirrel-cage  door  Kedzie  had  ever  seen  (she  had  to  run 
round  it  thrice  before  they  could  get  her  out)  into  a 
sumptuousness  beyond  her  dream. 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

At  the  foot  of  more  stairs  the  porter  let  down  his 
burdens,  and  a  boy  in  a  general's  uniform  seized  them. 
The  porter  said,  mopping  his  brow  to  emphasize  his 
achievement : 

"This  is  fur's  I  go." 

"Oh,  all  right!  Much  obliged,"  said  Adna.  He  just 
pretended  to  walk  away  as  a  joke  on  the  porter.  When 
he  saw  the  man's  white  stare  aggravated  sufficiently,  Adna 
smiled  and  handed  him  a  dime. 

The  porter  stared  and  turned  away  in  bitter  grief. 
Then  his  chuckle  returned  as  he  went  his  way,  telling  him- 
self: "And  the  bes'  of  it  was,  I  fit  for  him!  I  just  had  to 
git  that  man." 

He  told  the  little  porter  about  it,  and  when  the  little 
porter,  who  had  been  scared  away  from  the  Thropps  and 
left  to  carry  Charity  Coe's  dainty  hand-bags,  showed  the 
big  porter  what  he  had  received,  still  the  big  porter 
laughed.  He  knew  how  to  live,  that  big  porter. 

Kedzie  followed  the  little  general  up  the  steps  and 
around  to  the  desk.  Her  father  realized  that  his  fellow- 
passenger  had  been  teasing  him  when  he  referred  to  this 
place  as  a  boarding-house,  but  he  was  not  at  all  crushed 
by  the  magnificence  he  was  encountering.  He  felt  that 
he  was  in  for  it — so  he  cocked  his  toothpick  pluckily  and 
wrote  on  the  loose-leaf  register  the  room  clerk  handed  him  : 

A.  Thropp,  wife  and  daughter,  Nimrim,  Mo. 

The  room  clerk  read  the  name  as  if  it  were  that  of  a 
potentate  whose  incognito  he  would  respect,  and  mur- 
mured: 

"About  what  accommodation  would  you  want,  Mr 
Thropp?" 

"Two  rooms — one  for  the  wife  and  m'self,  one  for  the 
daughter." 

"Yes,  sir.  And  about  how  much  would  you  want  to 
pay?" 

32 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"How  do  they  run?" 

"We  can  give  you  two  nice  adjoining  rooms  for  twelve 
dollars — up." 

Mr.  Thropp  made  a  hasty  calculation.  Twelve  dollars 
a  week  for  board  and  lodging  was  not  so  bad.  He  nodded. 

The  room  clerk  marked  down  a  number  and  slid  a  key 
to  the  page,  who  gathered  the  family  treasures  together. 
Kedzie  had  more  or  less  helplessly  recognized  the  page's 
admiration  of  her  when  he  first  took  the  things  from  the 
porter.  The  sense  of  her  beauty  had  choked  the  boy's 
amusement  at  her  parents. 

Later  Kedzie  caught  the  glance  of  the  room  clerk  and 
saw  that  she  startled  him  and  cheated  him  of  his  smile 
at  Adna.  Still  later  the  elevator-boy  gave  her  one  re- 
spectful look  of  approval.  Kedzie's  New  York  stir  was 
already  beginning. 

The  page  ushered  the  Thropps  into  the  elevator  and 
said,  "Nineteen." 

It  was  the  number  of  the  floor,  not  the  room.  Adna 
warned  his  women  folk  that  "she"  was  about  to  go  up, 
but  they  were  not  prepared  for  that  swift  vertical  leap 
toward  the  clouds.  Another  floor,  and  Mrs.  Thropp 
would  have  screamed.  The  altitude  affected  her. 

Then  the  thing  stopped,  and  the  boy  led  them  down  a 
corridor  so  long  that  Adna  said,  "Looks  like  we'd  be 
stranded  a  hundred  miles  from  nowheres." 

The  boy  turned  in  at  a  door  at  last.  He  flashed  on  the 
lights,  set  the  bags  on  a  bag-rack,  hung  up  the  coats, 
opened  a  window,  adjusted  the  shade,  lighted  the  lights  in 
Kedzie's  room,  opened  her  window,  adjusted  the  shade, 
and  asked  if  there  were  anything  else. 

Adna  knew  what  the  little  villain  meant,  but  he 
knew  what  was  expected,  and  he  said,  sternly,  "Ice- 
water." 

"Right  here,  sir,"  said  the  boy,  and  indicated  in  the 
bathroom  a  special  faucet  marked  "Drinking  Water." 

This  startled  even  Adna  so  much  that  it  shook  a  dime 
3  33 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

out  of  him.  The  boy  sighed  and  went  away.  Kedzie 
surprised  his  eye  as  he  left.  It  plainly  found  no  fault 
with  her. 

Here  in  seclusion  Mrs.  Thropp  dared  to  exclaim  at  the 
wonders  of  modern  invention.  Kedzie  was  enfranchised 
and  began  to  jump  and  squeal  at  the  almost  suffocating 
majesty.  Adna  took  to  himself  the  credit  for  everything. 

"Well,  momma,  here  we  are  in  New  York  at  last.  Here 
we  are,  daughter.  You  got  your  wish." 

Kedzie  nearly  broke  his  neck  with  her  hug,  and  called 
him  the  best  father  that  ever  was.  And  she  meant  it  at 
the  moment,  for  the  moment. 

Mrs.  Thropp  was  already  making  herself  at  home, 
loosening  her  waistband  and  her  corset-laces. 

Adna  made  himself  at  home,  too — that  is,  he  took  off 
his  coat  and  collar  and  shoes.  But  Kedzie  could  not 
waste  her  time  on  comfort  while  there  was  so  much 
ecstasy  to  be  had. 

She  went  to  the  window,  shoved  the  sash  high,  and 
— discovered  New  York.  She  greeted  it  with  an  outcry 
of  wonder.  She  called  to  her  mother  and  father  to 
"Come  here  and  looky!" 

Her  mother  moaned,  "I  wouldn't  come  that  far  to 
look  at  New  Jerusalem." 

Adna  yawned  noisily  and  pulled  out  his  watch.  His 
very  eyes  yawned  at  it,  and  he  said:  "  'Levum  o'clock. 
Good  Lord!  Git  to  bed  quick!" 

Kedzie  was  furious  at  ending  the  day  so  abruptly. 
She  wanted  to  go  out  for  a  walk,  and  they  sent  her  to  her 
room.  She  watched  at  the  window  as  she  peeled  off  her 
coarse  garments  and  put  her  soft  body  into  a  rough  night- 
gown as  ill-cut  and  shapeless  as  she  was  neither.-  She 
had  been  turned  by  a  master's  lathe. 

She  waited  till  she  heard  her  father's  well-known  snore 
seesawing  through  the  panels.  Then  she  went  to  the 
window  again  to  gaze  her  fill  at  the  town.  She  fell  in 
love  with  it  and  told  it  so.  She  vowed  that  she  would 

34 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

never  leave  it.  She  had  not  come  to  a  strange  city;  she 
had  just  reached  home. 

She  leaned  far  out  across  the  ledge  to  look  down  at  the 
tremendously  inferior  street.  She  nearly  pitched  head 
foremost  and  scrambled  back,  but  with  a  giggle  of  bliss 
at  the  excitement.  She  stared  at  the  dark  buildings  of 
various  heights  before  her.  There  was  something  awe- 
inspiring  about  them. 

Across  a  space  of  roofs  was  the  electric  sign  of  an  electric 
company,  partly  hidden  by  buildings.  All  Kedzie  could 
see  of  it  was  the  huge  phrase  LIGHT — HEAT — POWER. 
She  thought  that  those  three  graces  would  make  an 
excellent  motto. 

She  could  see  across  and  down  into  the  well  of  the 
Grand  Central  Terminal.  On  its  front  was  some  enor- 
mous winged  figure  facing  down  the  street.  She  did  not 
know  who  it  was  or  what  street  it  was.  She  did  not 
know  any  of  the  streets  by  name,  but  she  wanted  to. 
She  had  a  passionate  longing  for  streets. 

Farther  south  or  north,  east  or  west,  or  whichever 
way  it  was,  was  a  tall  building  with  glowing  bulbs  looped 
like  the  strings  of  evergreen  she  had  helped  to  drape  the 
home  church  with  at  Christmas-time.  Here  it  was 
Christmas  every  day — all  holidays  in  one.  . 

Down  in  the  ravine  a  little  in  front  of  her  she  could 
read  the  sign  ATHENS  HOTEL.  She  had  heard  of  Athens. 
It  was  the  capital  of  some  place  in  her  geography.  She 
who  had  so  much  of  Grecian  in  her  soul  was  not  quite  sure 
of  Athens! 

In  one  of  the  opposite  office  buildings  people  were  work- 
ing late.  The  curtains  were  drawn,  but  the  casements 
were  filled  with  light,  a  honey-colored  light.  The  build- 
ings were  like  great  honeycombs ;  the  dark  windows  were 
like  the  cells  that  had  no  honey  in  them.  Light  and  life 
were  honey.  Kedzie  wondered  what  folks  they  were 
behind  those  curtains — who  they  were,  and  what  were 
they  up  to.  She  bet  it  was  something  interesting.  She 

35 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

wished  she  knew  them.     She  wished  she  knew  a  whole  lot 
of  city  people.     But  she  didn't  know  a  soul. 

It  was  all  too  glorious  to  believe.  She  was  in  New 
York!  imparadised  in  New  York! 

"Kedzie!    Ked-zee-ee!" 

"Yes,  momma." 

"Are  you  in  bed?" 

"Yes,  momma."  She  tried  to  give  her  voice  a  far- 
away, sleepy  sound,  for  fear  that  her  mother  might  open 
the  door  to  be  sure. 

She  crept  into  bed.  The  lights  burned  her  weary  eyes. 
She  could  not  reach  them  to  put  them  out. 

By  the  head  of  her  bed  was  a  little  toy  lamp.  A  chain 
hung  from  it.  She  tugged  at  the  chain — pouff !  out  went 
the  light.  She  tugged  at  the  chain.  On  went  the  light. 
A  magical  chain,  that !  It  put  the  light  on  and  off,  both. 
Kedzie  could  find  no  chains  to  pull  the  ceiling  lights  out 
with.  She  let  them  burn. 

Kedzie  covered  her  head  and  yet  could  not  sleep.  She 
sat  up  quickly.  Was  that  music  she  heard?  Somebody 
was  giving  a  party,  maybe. 

She  got  up  and  out  again  and  ran  barefoot  to  the  hall 
door,  opened  it  an  inch,  and  peeked  through.  She  saw  a 
man  and  two  ladies  swishing  along  the  hall  to  the  elevator. 
They  were  not  sleepy  at  all,  and  the  ladies  were  dressed — 
whew !  skirts  short  and  no  sleeves  whatever.  They  really 
were  going  to  a  party. 

Kedzie  closed  the  door  and  drooped  back  to  bed — an 
awful  place  to  go  when  all  the  rest  of  the  world  was  just 
starting  out  to  parties. 

She  flopped  and  gasped  in  her  bed  like  a  fish  ashore. 
Then  a  gorgeous  whim  came  to  her.  She  would  dive  into 
her  element.  Light  and  fun  were  her  element.  She  came 
out  of  bed  like  a  watch-spring  leaping  from  a  case.  She 
tiptoed  to  the  parental  door — heard  nothing  but  the  rumor 
of  slumber. 

She  began  to  dress.     She  put  on  her  extra-good  dress. 
36 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

She  had  brought  it  along  in  the  big  valise  in  case  of  an 
accident  to  the  every-day  dress.  When  she  had  squirmed 
through  the  ordeal  of  hooking  it  up,  she  realized  that  its 
skirts  were  too  long  for  decency.  She  pinned  them  up 
at  the  hem. 

The  gown  had  a  village  low-neck — that  is,  it  was  a 
trifle  V'd  at  the  throat.  Kedzie  tried  to  copy  the  corsage 
of  the  women  who  passed  in  the  hall.  She  withdrew  from 
the  sleeves,  and  gathering  the  waist  together  under  her 
arms,  fastened  it  as  best  she  could.  The  revelation  was 
terrifying.  All  of  her  chest  and  shoulders  and  shoulder- 
blades  were  bare. 

She  dared  hardly  look  at  herself.  Yet  she  could  not 
possibly  deny  the  fearful  charm  of  those  contours.  She 
put  her  clothes  on  again  and  prinked  as  much  as  she  could. 
Then  she  sallied  forth,  opening  and  closing  the  door  with 
pious  care.  She  went  to  the  elevator,  and  the  car  began 
to  drop.  The  elevator-boy  politely  lowered  it  without 
plunge  or  jolt. 

Kedzie  followed  the  sound  of  the  music.  The  lobbies 
were  thronged  with  brilliant  crowds  flocking  from 
theaters  for  supper  and  a  dance.  Kedzie  made  her 
way  to  the  edge  of  the  supper-room.  The  floor,  like 
a  pool  surrounded  by  chairs  and  tables,  was  alive  with 
couples  dancing  contentedly.  Every  woman  was  in 
evening  dress  and  so  was  every  man.  The  splendor  of 
the  costumes  made  her  blink.  The  shabbiness  of  her 
own  made  her  blush. 

She  blushed  because  her  own  dress  was  indecent  and 
immoral.  It  was  indecent  and  immoral  because  it  was 
unlike  that  of  the  majority.  In  this  parish,  convention- 
ality, which  is  the  one  true  synonym  for  morality,  called  for 
bare  shoulders  and  arms  unsleeved.  Kedzie  was  con- 
spicuous, which  is  a  perfect  synonym  for  immoral.  If 
she  had  fallen  through  the  ceiling  out  of  a  bathtub  she 
could  not  have  felt  more  in  need  of  a  hiding-place.  She 
shrank  into  a  corner  and  sought  cover  and  concealment, 

37 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

for  she  was  afraid  to  go  back  to  the  elevator  through  the 
ceaseless  inflow  of  the  decollet^es. 

She  throbbed  to  the  music  of  the  big  band;  her  feet 
burned  to  dance;  her  waist  ached  for  the  sash  of  a  manly 
arm.  She  knew  that  she  could  dance  better  than  some 
of  those  stodgy  old  men  and  block-bodied  old  women. 
But  she  had  no  clothes  on — for  dancing. 

But  there  was  one  woman  whom  Kedzie  felt  she  could 
not  surpass,  a  dazzling  woman  with  a  recklessly  graceful 
young  man.  The  young  man  took  the  woman  from  a 
table  almost  over  Kedzie's  head.  They  left  at  the  table 
a  man  in  evening  dress  who  smoked  a  big  cigar  and 
seemed  not  to  be  jealous  of  the  two  dancers. 

Some  one  among  the  spectators  about  Kedzie  said  that 
the  woman  was  Zada  L'Etoile,  and  her  partner  was 
Haviland  Devoe.  Zada  was  amazing  in  her  postures  and 
gyrations,  but  Kedzie  thought  that  she  herself  could  have 
danced  as  well  if  she  had  had  that  music,  that  costume, 
that  partner,  and  a  little  practice. 

When  Zada  had  completed  her  calisthenics  she  did  not 
sit  down  with  Mr.  Devoe,  but  went  back  to  the  table 
where  the  lone  smoker  sat.  Now  that  she  looked  at  him 
again,  Kedzie  thought  what  an  extraordinarily  handsome, 
gloriously  wicked-looking,  swell-looking  man  he  was. 
Yet  the  girl  who  had  danced  called  him  Peterkin — which 
didn't  sound  very  swell  to  Kedzie. 

He  had  very  little  to  say  to  Zada,  who  did  most  of  the 
talking.  He  smiled  at  her  now  and  then  behind  his  cigar 
and  gave  her  a  queer  look  that  Kedzie  only  vaguely  un- 
derstood. She  thought  little  of  him,  though,  because  the 
next  dance  began,  and  she  had  a  whole  riot  of  costumes 
to  study. 

There  was  a  constant  movement  of  new-comers  past 
Kedzie's  nook.  Sometimes  people  halted  to  look  the 
crowd  over  before  they  went  up  the  steps,  and  asked  two 
handsome  gentlemen  in  full-dress  suits  if  they  could  have 
a  table.  The  gentlemen— managers,  probably,  who  got 

38 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

up  the  party — usually  said  no.  Sometimes  they  looked 
at  papers  in  their  hands  and  marked  off  something,  and 
then  the  people  got  a  table. 

By  and  by  two  men  and  an  elderly  woman  dressed  like 
a  very  youngerly  woman  paused  near  Kedzie.  Both  of 
the  men  were  tall,  but  the  one  called  Jim  was  so  tall  he 
could  see  over  the  rail,  or  over  the  moon,  for  all  Kedzie 
knew. 

The  elderly  lady  said,  "Come  along,  boys;  we're  miss- 
ing a  love  of  a  trot." 

The  less  tall  of  the  men  said:  "Now,  mother,  restrain 
yourself.  Remember  I've  had  a  hard  day  and  I'm  only  a 
young  feller.  How  about  you,  Jim?" 

"I'll  eat  something,  but  I'm  not  dancing,  if  you'll  par- 
don me,  Mrs.  Duane,"  said  Jim.  "And  I'm  waiting  for 
Charity  Coe.  She's  in  the  cloak-room." 

"Oh,  come  along,"  said  Mrs.  Duane.  " I've  got  a  table 
and  I  don't  want  to  lose  it." 

She  started  away,  and  her  son  started  to  follow,  but 
paused  as  the  other  man  caught  his  sleeve  and  growled: 

' '  I  say,  isn't  that  Pete  Cheever — there,  right  there  by 
the  rail?  Yes,  it  is — and  with — !" 

Then  Tom  gave  a  start  and  said:  "Ssh!  Here's  Char- 
ity Coe." 

Both  men  looked  confused;  then  they  brightened  and 
greeted  a  new  batch  of  drifters,  and  there  was  a  babble  of: 

"Why,  hello!  How  are  you,  Tom!  How  goes  it,  Jim? 
What's  the  good  word,  Mary?  What  you  doing  here, 
Charity,  and  all  in  black?  Oh,  I  have  to  get  out  or  go 
mad." 

Kedzie,  eavesdropping  on  the  chatter,  wondered  at  the 
commonplace  names  and  the  small-town  conversation. 
With  such  costumes  she  must  have  expected  at  least  blank 
verse. 

She  was  interested  to  see  what  the  stern  sentinels  would 
do  to  this  knot  of  Toms,  Jims,  and  Marys.  She  peeked 
around  the  corner,  and  to  her  surprise  saw  them  greeted 

39 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

with  great  cordiality.     They  smiled  and  chatted  with  the 
sentinels  and  were  passed  through  the  silken  barrier. 

Other  people  paused  and  passed  in  or  were  rejected. 
Kedzie  watched  Mr.  Cheever  with  new  interest,  but  not 
much  understanding.  He  had  next  to  nothing  to  say. 
After  a  time  she  overheard  Zada  say  to  him,  raising  her 
voice  to  top  the  noise  of  the  band:  "Say,  Peterkin,  see 
that  great  big  lad  over  there,  the  human  lighthouse  by  the 
sea?  Peterkin,  you  can't  miss  him — he's  just  standing 
Up_yeS— isn't  that  Jim  Dyckman?  Is  he  really  so  rich 
as  they  say?" 

"He's  rotten  rich!"  said  Peterkin. 
Then  Zada  said  something  and  pointed.     She  seemed 
to  be  excited,  but  not  half  so  excited  as  Peter  was.     His 
face  was  all  shot  up  with  red,  and  he  looked  as  if  he  had 
eaten  something  that  didn't  sit  easy. 

Then  he  looked  as  if  he  wanted  to  fight  somebody.  He 
began  to  chew  on  his  words. 

Kedzie  caught  only  a  few  phrases  in  the  holes  in  the 
noisy  music. 

"When  did  she  get  back?  And  she's  here  with  him? 
I'll  kill  him—" 

Kedzie  stood  on  tiptoe,  primevally  trying  to  lift  her  ears 
higher  still  to  hear  what  followed.  She  saw  Zada  putting 
her  hand  on  Peter's  sleeve,  and  she  heard  Zada  say: 

"  Don't  start  anything  here.  Remember  I  got  a  reputa- 
tion to  lose,  if  you  haven't." 

This  had  the  oddest  effect  on  Peter.  He  stared  at 
Zada,  and  his  anger  ran  out  of  his  face  just  as  the  water 
ran  out  of  the  silver  washbowl  in  the  sleeping-car.  Then 
he  began  to  laugh  softly,  but  as  if  he  wanted  to  laugh  right 
out  loud.  He  put  his  napkin  up  and  laughed  into  that. 
And  then  the  anger  he  had  lost  ran  up  into  Zada's  face, 
and  she  looked  at  Peter  as  if  she  wanted  to  kill  him. 

Now  it  was  Peter  who  put  his  hand  on  her  arm  and 
patted  it  and  said,  "I  didn't  mean  anything." 

Mean    what?     Kedzie    wondered.     But    she    had    no 
40 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

chance  to  find  out,  for  Peter  rose  from  the  table  and, 
dodging  around  the  dancing  couples,  made  his  escape. 
He  reappeared  in  the  very  nook  where  Kedzie  watched, 
and  called  up  to  Zada: 

"Did  they  see  me?" 

Zada  shook  her  head.  Peter  threw  her  a  kiss.  She 
threw  him  a  shrug  of  contempt.  Peter  went  away  laugh- 
ing. Kedzie  waited  a  few  minutes  and  saw  that  Mr. 
Devoe  had  come  to  sit  with  Zada. 

After  a  moment  the  music  was  resumed,  and  Zada  rose 
to  dance  again  with  Mr.  Devoe — a  curious  sort  of  dance, 
in  which  she  lifted  her  feet  high  and  placed  them  carefully, 
as  if  she  were  walking  on  a  floor  covered  with  eggs  and 
didn't  want  to  break  any. 

But  Kedzie's  eyes  were  rilling  with  sand.  They  had 
gaaed  too  long  at  brilliance.  She  dashed  back  to  the 
elevator  and  to  her  room.  She  was  exhausted,  and  she 
pulled  off  her  clothes  and  let  them  lie  where  they  fell. 
She  slid  her  weary  frame  between  the  sheets  and  instantly 
slept. 

Charity  Coe  danced  till  all  hours  with  Jim,  with  Tom 
Duane  and  other  men,  and  no  one  could  have  fancied  that 
she  had  ever  known  or  cared  what  horrors  filled  the  war 
hospitals  across  the  sea. 

She  was  frantic  enough  to  accept  a  luncheon  engage- 
ment with  Jim  an<3.  his  mother  for  the  next  day.  She 
telephoned  him  in  the  morning :  ' '  Your  angel  of  a  mother 
will  forgive  me  when  you  tell  her  I'm  lunching  down-town 
with  my  husband.  The  poor  boy  was  detained  at  his 
office  last  night  and  didn't  get  my  telegram  till  he  got 
home.  When  he  learned  that  I  had  come  in  and  gone  out 
again  he  was  furious  with  himself  and  me.  I  hadn't  left 
word  where  I  was,  so  he  couldn't  come  running  after  me. 
He  waited  at  home  and  gave  me  a  love  of  a  call-down  for 
my  dissipation.  It  was  a  treat.  I  really  think  he  was 
jealous." 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Jim  Dyckman  did  not  laugh  with  her.  He  was  thinking 
hard.  He  had  seen  Cheever  at  the  Biltmore,  and  a  little 
later  Cheever  vanished.  Cheever  must  have  seen  Charity 
Coe  then.  And  if  he  saw  her,  he  saw  him.  Then  why 
had  he  kept  silent?  Dyckman  had  a  chilling  intuition 
that  Cheever  was  lying  in  ambush  for  him. 

Again  he  was  wrung  with  the  impulse  to  tell  Charity 
Coe  the  truth  about  her  husband.  Again  some  dubious 
decency  withheld  him. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  word  "breakfast"  was  magic  stimulant  to  the 
Thropps.  Kedzie  put  on  her  clothes,  and  the  family 
went  down  to  the  elevator  together. 

They  found  their  way  to  the  Tudor  Room,  where  a 
small  number  of  men,  mostly  barricaded  behind  news- 
papers, ate  briskly.  A  captain  showed  the  Thropps  to  a 
table;  three  waiters  pulled  out  their  chairs  and  pushed 
them  in  under  them.  Another  laid  large  pasteboards  be- 
fore them.  Another  planted  ice-water  and  butter  and  salt 
and  pepper  here  and  there. 

Adna  had  traveled  enough  to  know  that  the  way  to 
order  a  meal  in  a  hotel  is  to  give  the  waiter  a  wise  look  and 
say,  "Bring  me  the  best  you  got." 

This  waiter  looked  a  little  surprised,  but  he  said,  "Yes, 
sir.  Do  you  like  fruit  and  eggs  and  rolls,  maybe?" 

"Nah,"  said  Adna.  "Breakfast's  my  best  meal.  Bring 
us  suthin'  hearty  and  plenty  of  it.  I  like  a  nice  piece  of 
steak  and  fried  potatoes  and  some  griddle-cakes  and 
maple-surrup,  and  if  you  got  any  nice  sawsitch — and  the 
wife  usually  likes  some  oatmeal,  and  she  takes  tea  and 
toast,  but  bring  me  some  hot  bread.  And  the  girl — 
What  you  want,  Kedzie?  The  same's  I'm  takin'?  All 
right.  Oh,  some  grape-fruit,  eh  ?  She  wants  grape-fruit. 
Got  any  good?  All  right.  I  guess  I'll  take  some  grape- 
fruit, too;  and  let  me  see —  I  guess  that  '11  do  to  start 
on —  Wait!  What's  that  those  folks  are  eatin'  over 
there?  Looks  good — spring  chicken — humm!  I  guess 
you'd  like  that  better  'n  steak,  ma  ?  Yes.  She'd  rather  have 
the  chicken.  All  right,  George,  you  hustle  us  in  a  nice 

43 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

meal  and  I'll  make  it  all  right  with  you.     You  under- 
stand." 

Adna  called  all  waiters  "George."  It  saved  their  feel- 
ings, he  had  heard. 

The  waiter  bowed  and  retired.  Adna  spoke  to  his 
family : 

"Since  we  pay  the  same,  anyway,  might's  well  have  the 
best  they  got." 

The  waiter  gave  the  three  a  meal  fitter  for  the  ancient 
days  when  kings  had  dinner  at  nine  in  the  morning  than 
for  these  degenerate  times  when  breakfast  hardly  lives  up 
to  its  name. 

The  waiter  and  his  cronies  stood  at  a  safe  distance  and 
watched  the  Thropps  surround  that  banquet.  They 
wondered  where  the  old  man  got  money  enough  to  buy 
such  breakfasts  and  why  he  didn't  spend  some  of  it  on 
clothes. 

The  favorite  theory  was  that  he  was  a  farmer  on  whose 
acres  somebody  had  discovered  oil  or  gold  and  bought  him 
out  for  a  million.  Mr.  Thropp's  proper  waiter  hoped  that 
he  would  be  as  extravagant  with  his  tip  as  he  was  with 
his  order.  He  feared  not.  His  waiterly  intuition  told 
him  the  old  man  put  in  with  more  enthusiasm  than  he 
paid  out. 

At  last  the  meal  was  over.  The  Thropps  were  groan- 
ing. They  had  not  quite  absorbed  the  feast,  but  they 
had  wrecked  it  utterly.  Mr.  Thropp  found  only  one 
omission  in  the  perfect  service.  The  toothpicks  had  to 
be  asked  for.  All  three  Thropps  wanted  them. 

While  Thropp  was  fishing  in  his  pocket  for  a  quarter,  and 
finding  only  half  a  dollar  which  he  did  not  want  to  reveal, 
the  waiter  placed  before  him  a  closely  written  manuscript, 
face  down,  with  a  lead-pencil  on  top  of  it. 

"What's  this?"  said  Thropp. 

"Will  you  please  to  sign  your  name  and  room  number, 
sir?"  the  waiter  suggested. 

"Oh,  I  see,"  said  Thropp,  and  explained  to  his  little 

44 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

flock.     "You  see,  they  got  to  keep  tabs  on  the  regular 
boarders." 

Then  he  turned  the  face  of  the  bill  to  the  light.  His 
pencil  could  hardly  find  a  place  to  put  his  name  in  the  long 
catalogue.  He  noted  a  sum  scrawled  in  red  ink  :"$n.75." 

"Wha-what's  this?"  he  said,  faintly. 

The  surprised  waiter  explained  with  all  suavity:  "The 
price  of  the  breakfast.  If  it  is  not  added  correctlee — " 

Thropp  added  it  with  accurate,  but  tremulous,  pencil. 
The  total  was  correct,  if  the  items  were.  He  explained: 

"But  I'm  a  regular — er — roomer  here.  I  pay  by  the 
week." 

"Yes,  sir — if  you  will  sign,  it  will  be  all  right." 

"But  that  don't  mean  they're  going  to  charge  me  for 
breakfast?  'Levum  dollars  and  seventy-five  cents  for — 
for  breakfast? — for  a  small  family  like  mine  is?  Well,  I'd 
like  to  see  'em!  What  do  they  think  I  am!" 

The  waiter  maintained  his  courtesy,  but  Adna  was  in- 
furiated. He  put  down  no  tip  at  all.  He  lifted  his  family 
from  the  table  with  a  yank  of  the  eyes  and  snapped  at  the 
waiter : 

"I'll  soon  find  out  who's  tryin'  to  stick  me — you  or  the 
propri'tor." 

The  old  man  stalked  out,  followed  by  his  fat  ewe  and 
their  ewe  lamb.  Adna's  very  toothpick  was  like  a  small 
bayonet. 

His  wife  and  daughter  hung  back  to  avoid  being  spat- 
tered with  the  gore  of  the  unfortunate  hotel  clerk.  The 
morning  trains  were  unloading  their  mobs,  and  it  was  dif- 
ficult to  reach  the  desk  at  all. 

When  finally  Adna  got  to  the  bar  he  had  lost  some  of 
his  running  start.  With  somewhat  weakly  anger  he  said 
to  the  first  clerk  he  reached : 

" Looky  here!  I  registered  here  last  night,  and  another 
young  feller  was  here  said  the  two  rooms  would  be  twelve 
dollars." 

"Yes,  sir." 

45 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Well,  they  sent  me  up  to  roost  on  a  cloud,  but  I 
didn't  kick.  Now  they're  tryin'  to  charge  me  for  meals 
extry.  Don't  that  twelve  dollars  include  meals?" 

"Oh  no,  sir.     The  hotel  is  on  the  European  plan." 

Adna  took  the  shock  bravely  but  bitterly:  "Well,  all 
I  got  to  say  is  the  Europeans  got  mighty  poor  plans.  I 
kind  of  suspicioned  there  was  a  ketch  in  it  somewheres. 
After  this  we'll  eat  outside,  and  at  the  end  of  the  week  we'll 
take  our  custom  somewheres  else.  Maybe  there  was  a  joke 
in  that  twelve  dollars  a  week  for  the  rooms,  too." 

"Twelve  dollars  a  week!  Oh  no,  sir;  the  charge  is  by 
the  day." 

Adna's  knees  seemed  to  turn  to  sand  and  run  down  into 
his  shoes.  He  supported  himself  on  his  elbows. 

"Twelve  dollars  a  day — for  those  two  rooms  on  the  top 
of  the  moon?" 

"Yes,  sir;  that's  the  rate,  sir." 

Adna  was  going  rapidly.  He  chattered,  "Ain't  there  no 
police  in  this  town  at  tall?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Well,  I've  heard  they're  the  wust  robbers  of  all. 
We'll  see  about  this."  He  went  back  to  his  women  folk 
and  mumbled,  "Come  on  up-stairs." 

They  followed,  Mrs.  Thropp  murmuring  to  Kedzie: 
"Looks  like  poppa  was  goin'  to  be  sick.  I'm  afraid  he  et 
too  much  of  that  rich  food." 

The  elevator  flashed  them  to  their  empyrean  floor. 
Adna  did  not  speak  till  they  were  in  their  room  and  he  had 
lowered  himself  feebly  into  a  chair.  He  spoke  thickly: 

"Do  you  know  what  that  Judas  Iscariot  down  there  is 
doin'  to  us?  Chargin'  us  twelve  dollars  a  day  for  these 
two  cubby-holes — a  day !  Twelve  dollars  a  day !  Eighty- 
four  dollars  a  week!  And  that  breakfast  was  'levum 
dollars  and  seventy-five  cents!  If  I'd  gave  the  waiter 
the  quarter  I  was  goin'  to,  it  would  have  made  an  even 
dozen  dollars!  for  breakfast!  I  don't  suppose  anybody 
would  ever  dast  order  a  dinner  here.  Why,  they'd  skin  a 

46 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

millionaire  and  pick  his  bones  in  a  week.  We'd  better 
get  out  before  they  slap  a  mortgage  on  my  house." 

"Well,  I  just  wouldn't  pay  it,"  said  Mrs.  Thropp.  "I'd 
see  the  police  about  such  goings-on." 

"The  police!"  groaned  Thropp.  "They're  in  cahoots 
with  the  burglars  here.  This  hull  town  is  a  den  of  thieves. 
I've  always  heard  it,  and  now  I  know  it." 

He  was  ashamed  of  himself  for  being  taken  in  so.  He 
began  to  throw  into  the  valises  the  duds  that  had  been 
removed. 

Throughout  the  panic  Kedzie  had  stood  about  in  a  kind 
of  stupor.  When  her  father  tapped  her  on  the  shoulder 
and  repeated  his  "C'm'on!"  she  turned  to  him  eyes  all 
tears  glistening  like  bubbles,  and  she  whimpered: 

"Oh,  daddy,  the  view!    The  nice  things!" 

Adna  snapped:  "View?  Our  next  view  will  be  the 
poorhouse  if  we  don't  hustle  our  stumps.  We  got  to  get 
out  of  here  and  find  the  cheapest  place  they  is  in  town  to 
live  or  go  back  home  on  the  next  train." 

Kedzie  began  to  cry,  to  cry  as  she  had  cried  when  she 
wept  in  her  cradle  because  candy  had  been  taken  from  her, 
or  a  box  of  carpet-tacks,  or  the  scissors  that  she  had  some- 
how got  hold  of. 

Adna  dropped  his  valises  with  a  thud.  He  began  to 
upbraid  her.  He  had  endured  too  much.  He  had  still 
his  bill  to  pay.  He  told  her  that  she  was  a  good-for- 
nothin'  nuisance  and  he  wished  he  had  left  her  home. 
He'd  never  take  her  anywheres  again,  you  bet.  Kedzie 
lost  her  reason  entirely.  She  was  shattered  with  spasms 
of  grief  aggravated  by  her  mother's  ferocity  and  her 
father's.  She  could  not  give  up  this  splendor.  She 
would  not  go  to  a  cheap  place  to  live.  She  would  never 
go  back  home.  She  would  rather  die. 

Her  mother  boxed  her  ears  and  shook  her  and  scolded 
with  all  her  vim.  But  Kedzie  only  shook  out  more  sobs 
till  they  wondered  what  the  people  next  door  would  think. 
Adna  was  wan  with  wrath.  Kedzie  was  afraid  of  her 

47 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

father's  look.  She  had  a  kind  of  lockjaw  of  grief  such 
as  children  suffer  and  suffer  for. 

All  she  would  answer  to  her  father's  threats  was:  "I 
won't!  I  won't!  I  tell  you  I  won't!" 

Her  cheeks  were  blubbered,  her  nose  red,  her  mouth 
swollen,  her  hair  wet  and  stringy.  She  gulped  and  swal- 
lowed and  beat  her  hands  together  and  stamped  her  feet. 

Adna  glared  at  her  in  hatred  equal  to  her  own  for  him. 
He  said  to  his  wife:  " Ma,  we  got  to  go  back  to  first  prin- 
ciples with  that  girl.  You  got  to  give  her  a  good  beatin'." 

Mrs.  Thropp  had  the  will  but  not  the  power.  She  was 
palsied  with  rage.  "I  can't,"  she  faltered. 

"Then  I  will!"  said  Adna,  and  he  roared  with  ferocity, 
"Come  here  to  me,  you!" 

He  put  out  his  hand  like  a  claw,  and  Kedzie  retreated 
from  him.  She  stopped  sobbing.  She  had  never  been  so 
frightened.  She  felt  a  new  kind  of  fright,  the  fright  of  a 
nun  at  seeing  an  altar  threatened  with  desecration.  She 
had  not  been  whipped  for  years.  She  had  grown  past 
that.  Surely  her  body  was  sacred  from  such  infamy  now. 

"Come  here  to  me,  I  tell  you!"  Adna  snarled,  as  he 
pursued  her  slowly  around  the  chairs. 

"You  better  not  whip  me,  poppa,"  Kedzie  mumbled. 
"You  better  not  touch  me,  I  tell  you.  You'll  be  sorry  if 
you  do !  You  better  not !' ' 

"Come  here  to  me!"  said  Adna. 

"Momma,  momma,  don't  let  him!"  Kedzie  whispered 
as  she  ran  to  her  mother  and  flung  herself  in  her  arms  for 
refuge. 

Mrs.  Thropp  then  lost  a  great  opportunity  forever. 
She  tore  the  girl's  hands  away  and  handed  her  over  to  her 
father.  And  he,  with  ugly  fury  and  ugly  gesture,  seized 
the  young  woman  who  had  been  his  child  and  dragged  her 
to  him  and  sank  into  a  chair  and  wrenched  and  twisted 
her  arms  till  he  held  her  prone  across  his  knees.  Then 
he  spanked  her  with  the  flat  of  his  hand. 

Kedzie  made  one  little  outcry;  then  there  was  no 

48 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

sound  but  the  thump  of  the  blows.  Adna  sickened  soon 
of  his  task,  and  Kedzie's  silence  and  non-resistance  robbed 
him  of  excuse.  He  growled: 

"I  guess  that  '11  learn  you  who's  boss  round  here." 
He  thrust  her  from  his  knees,  and  she  rolled  off  to  the 
floor  and  lay  still.     She  had  not  really  swooned,  but  her 
soul  had  felt  the  need  of  withdrawing  into  itself  to  ponder 
this  awful  sacrilege. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HER  mother  knew  that  she  had  not  fainted.  She  was 
sick,  too,  and  blamed  Kedzie  for  the  scene.  She 
spurned  the  girl  with  her  foot  and  said: 

"You  get  right  up  off  that  floor  this  minute.  Do  you 
hear?" 

Kedzie's  soul  came  back.  It  had  made  its  decision. 
It  gathered  her  body  together  and  lifted  it  up  to  its  knees 
and  then  erect,  while  the  lips  said,  "All  right,  momma." 

She  groped  her  way  into  the  bathroom  and  washed  her 
face,  and  straightened  her  hair  and  came  forth,  a  dazed 
and  pallid  thing.  She  took  up  the  valise  her  father  gave 
her  and  followed  her  mother  out,  pausing  to  pass  her  eyes 
about  the  beautiful  room  and  the  window  where  the 
peaks  of  splendor  were.  Then  she  walked  out,  and  her 
father  locked  the  door. 

Kedzie  saw  that  the  elevator-boy  saw  that  she  had 
been  crying,  but  what  was  one  shame  extra?  She  had  no 
pride  left  now,  and  no  father  and  no  mother,  no  anybody. 

Adna  refused  the  offices  of  the  pages  who  clutched  at 
the  baggage.  He  went  to  the  cashier  and  paid  the  blood- 
money  with  a  grin  of  hate.  Then  he  gathered  up  his 
women  and  his  other  baggage  and  set  out  for  the  station. 
He  would  leave  all  the  baggage  there  while  he  hunted  a 
place  to  stop. 

They  could  not  find  the  tunnelway,  but  debouched  on 
the  street.  Crossing  Vanderbilt  Avenue  was  a  problem 
for  village  folk  heavy  laden.  The  taxicabs  were  hooting 
and  scurrying. 

Adna  found  himself  in  the  middle  of  the  street,  entirely 

50 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

surrounded  by  demoniac  motors.  His  wife  wanted  to  lie 
down  there  and  die.  Adna  dared  neither  to  go  nor  to  stay. 
Suddenly  a  chauffeur  of  an  empty  limousine,  fearing  to 
lose  a  chance  to  swear  at  a  taxi-driver,  kept  his  head  turned 
to  the  left  and  steered  straight  for  the  spot  where  the 
Thropps  awaited  their  doom. 

Adna  had  his  wife  pendent  from  one  arm  and  a  valise 
or  two  from  the  other.  Kedzie  carried  a  third  valise. 
Her  better  than  normal  shoulders  were  sagged  out  of 
line  by  its  weight. 

When  Adna  saw  the  motor  coming  ne  had  to  choose 
between  dropping  his  valise  or  his  wife.  Characteristi- 
cally, he  saved  his  valise. 

In  spite  of  his  wife's  squawking  and  tugging  on  his  left 
arm,  he  achieved  safety  under  the  portico  of  the  Grand 
Central  Terminal.  He  looked  about  for  Kedzie.  She  was 
not  to  be  seen.  Adna  saw  the  taxicab  pass  over  the  valise 
she  had  carried.  It  left  no  trace  of  Kedzie.  Her  an- 
nihilation was  uncanny.  He  gaped. 

"Where's  Kedzie?"  Mrs.  Thropp  screamed. 

A  policeman  checked  the  traffic  with  uplifted  hand. 
Adna  ran  to  him.  Mrs.  Thropp  told  him  what  had 
happened. 

"I  saw  the  goil  drop  the  bag  and  beat  it  for  the  walk," 
said  the  officer. 

"Which  way'd  she  go?" 

"She  lost  herself  in  the  crowd,"  said  the  officer. 

"She  was  scared  out  of  her  wits,"  Mrs.  Thropp 
sobbed. 

The  officer  shook  his  head.  "She  was  smilin'  when  I 
yelled  at  her.  It  looks  to  me  like  a  get-away." 

"A  runaway?"  Mrs.  Thropp  gasped. 

"Yes,  'm.  I'd  have  went  after  her,  but  I  was  cut  off  by 
a  taxi." 

The  two  old  Thropps  stood  staring  at  each  other  and 
the  unfathomable  New  York,  while  the  impatient  chauf- 
feurs squawked  their  horns  in  angry  protest,  and  train- 
Si 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

missers  with  important  errands  thrust  their  heads  out  of 
cab  windows. 

The  officer  led  his  bewildered  charges  to  the  sidewalk, 
motioned  the  traffic  to  proceed,  and  beckoned  to  a 
patrolman.  "Tell  your  troubles  to  him,"  he  said,  and 
went  back  into  his  private  maelstrom. 

The  patrolman  heard  the  Thropp  story  and  tried  to 
keep  the  crowd  away.  He  patted  Mrs.  Thropp's  back 
and  said  they'd  find  the  kid  easy,  not  to  distoib  herself. 
He  told  the  father  which  station-house  to  go  to  and 
advised  him  to  have  the  "skipper  "  send  out  a  "general." 

Thropp  wondered  what  language  he  spoke,  but  he  went ; 
and  a  soft-hearted  walrus  in  uniform  sprawling  across  a 
lofty  desk  took  down  names  and  notes  and  minute  descrip- 
tions of  Kedzie  and  her  costume.  He  told  the  two  babes 
in  the  wood  that  such  t'ings  happened  constant,  and  the 
goil  would  toin  up  in  no  time.  He  sent  out  a  general 
alarm. 

Mrs.  Thropp  told  him  the  whole  story,  putting  all  the 
blame  on  her  husband  with  such  enthusiasm  that  the 
sympathy  of  everybody  went  out  to  him.  Everybody 
included  a  number  of  reporters  who  asked  Mrs.  Thropp 
questions  and  particularly  desired  a  photograph  of  Kedzie. 

Mrs.  Thropp  confessed  that  she  had  not  brought  any 
along.  She  had  never  dreamed  that  the  girl  would  run 
away.  If  she  had  have,  she  wouldn't  have  brought  the 
girl  along,  to  say  nothing  of  her  photograph. 

The  amiable  walrus  in  the  cap  and  brass  buttons  recom- 
mended the  Thropps  to  a  boarding-house  whose  prices 
were  commensurate  with  Adna's  ideas  and  means,  and 
he  and  his  wife  went  thither,  where  they  told  a  shabby  and 
sentimental  landlady  all  their  troubles.  She  reassured 
them  as  best  she  could,  and  made  a  cup  of  tea  for  Mrs. 
Thropp  and  told  Mr.  Thropp  there  was  a  young  fellow 
lived  in  the  house  who  was  working  for  a  private  detective 
bureau.  He'd  find  the  kid  sure,  for  it  was  a  small  woild, 
after  all. 

52 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

There  was  a  lull  in  the  European-war  news  the  next 
day — only  a  few  hundreds  killed  in  an  interchange  of 
trenches.  There  was  a  dearth  of  big  local  news  also. 
So  the  morning  papers  all  gave  Kedzie  Thropp  the  hos- 
pitality of  their  head-lines.  The  illustrated  journals  pub- 
lished what  they  said  was  her  photograph.  No  two  of  the 
photographs  were  alike,  but  they  were  all  pretty. 

The  copy-writers  loved  the  details  of  the  event.  They 
gave  the  dialogue  of  the  Thropps  in  many  versions,  all 
emphasizing  what  is  known  as  "the  human  note." 

Every  one  of  them  gave  due  emphasis  to  the  historic 
fact  that  Kedzie  Thropp  had  been  spanked. 

The  boarding-house  was  shaken  from  attic  to  basement 
by  the  news.  The  Thropps  read  the  papers.  They  were 
astounded  and  enraged  at  gaining  publicity  for  such  a  deed. 
They  visited  the  walrus  in  his  den.  But  there  was  no 
word  of  Kedzie  Thropp.  The  sea  of  people  had  opened 
and  swallowed  the  little  girl.  Her  mother  wondered 
where  she  had  slept  and  if  she  were  hungry  and  into  whose 
hands  she  had  fallen.  But  there  was  no  answer  from 
anywhere. 


CHAPTER  IX 

F)EOPLE  who  call  a  child  in  from  All  Outdoors  and  1 
1     make  it  their  infant  owe  it  to  their  victim  to  be  rich, 
brilliant,  and  generous.     Kedzie  Thropp's  parents  were 
poor,  stupid,  and  stingy. 

They  were  respectable  enough,  but  not  respectful  at  all. 
Children  have  more  dignity  than  anybody  else,  because 
they  have  not  lived  long  enough  to  have  their  natal  dig- 
nity knocked  out  of  them. 

Kedzie's  parents  ought  to  have  respected  hers,  but  they 
subjected  her  to  odious  humiliation.  When  her  father 
threatened  to  spank  her — and  did — and  when  her  mother 
aided  and  abetted  him,  they  forfeited  all  claim  to  her 
tolerance.  The  inspiration  to  run  away  was  forced  on 
Kedzie,  though  she  would  have  said  that  her  parents  ran 
away  from  her  first. 

Kedzie  had  preferred  her  own  life  to  the  security  of  her 
valise.  She  dropped  the  bag  without  hesitation.  When 
the  taxicab  parted  her  family  in  the  middle,  Kedzie 
ran  to  the  opposite  sidewalk.  She  saw  a  policeman  dash- 
ing into  the  thick  of  the  motors.  Her  eye  caught  his. 
He  beckoned  to  her  that  he  would  ferry  her  across  the 
torrent.  He  was  a  nice-looking  man,  but  she  shook  her 
head  at  him.  She  smiled,  however,  and  hastened  away. 

Freedom  had  been  forced  on  her.  Why  should  she 
relinquish  the  boon? 

She  lost  herself  in  the  crowd.  She  had  no  purpose  or 
destination,  for  the  whole  city  was  a  mystery  to  her. 
Soon  she  noted  that  part  of  the  human  stream  flowed 
down  into  the  yawning  maw  of  a  Subway  kiosk  as  the 

54 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

water  ran  out  of  the  bath-tub  in  the  hotel.  She  floated 
down  the  steps  and  found  herself  in  a  big  subterrene  room 
with  walls  tiled  like  those  of  the  hotel  bathroom.  Every- 
body was  buying  tickets  from  a  man  in  a  funny  little  cage. 

Kedzie  had  a  hand-bag  slung  at  her  wrist.  In  it  was 
some  small  money.  She  fished  out  a  nickel  and  slid  it 
across  the  glass  sill  as  the  others  did. 

Beneath  her  eyes  she  saw  a  card  that  asked,  "How 
many?"  She  said,  "One." 

The  doleful  ticket-seller  was  annoyed  at  the  tautology 
of  passing  him  a  nickel  and  saying,  "One!"  He  shot  out 
an  angry  glance  with  the  ticket,  but  he  melted  at  sight 
of  Kedzie's  lush  beauty,  recognized  her  unquestionable 
plebeiance,  and  hailed  her  with  a  "Here  you  are,  Cutie." 

Kedzie  was  not  at  all  insulted.  She  gave  him  smile  for 
smile,  took  up  her  pasteboard  and  followed  the  crowd 
through  the  gate. 

The  ticket-chopper  yelled  at  the  back  of  her  head, 
"Here,  where  you  goin'?" 

She  turned  to  him,  and  his  scowl  relaxed.  He  pointed 
to  the  box  and  pleaded : 

"Put  her  there,  miss,  if  you  please." 

She  smiled  at  the  ticket-chopper  and  dropped  the  flake 
into  the  box.  She  moved  down  the  stairway  as  an  express 
rolled  in.  People  ran.  Kedzie  ran.  They  squeezed  in 
at  the  side  door,  and  so  did  Kedzie.  The  wicker  seats 
were  full,  and  so  Kedzie  stood.  She  could  not  reach  the 
handles  that  looked  like  cruppers.  Men  and  women  saw 
how  pretty  she  was.  She  was  so  pretty  that  one  or  two 
men  nearly  rose  and  offered  her  their  seats.  When  the 
train  whooped  round  the  curve  beneath  Times  Square 
Kedzie  was  spun  into  the  lap  of  a  man  reading  a  pre- 
maturely born  "Night  Edition." 

She  came  through  the  paper  like  a  circus-lady,  and  the 
man  was  indignant  till  he  saw  what  he  held.  Then  he 
laughed  foolishly,  helped  the  giggling  Kedzie  to  her  feet 
and  rose  to  his  own,  gave  her  his  place,  and  went  blushing 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

into  the  next  car.  For  an  hour  after  his  arms  felt  as  if 
they  had  clasped  a  fugitive  nymph  for  a  moment  before 
she  escaped. 

This  train  chanced  to  be  an  express  to  iSoth  Street  in 
the  Bronx  Borough.  If  any  one  had  asked  Kedzie  if  she 
knew  the  Bronx  she  would  probably  have  answered  that 
she  did  not  know  them.  She  did  not  even  know  what  a 
borough  was. 

It  was  fascinating  how  much  Kedzie  did  not  know. 
She  had  an  infinite  fund  of  things  to  find  out. 

She  was  thrilled  thoroughly  by  the  glorious  velocity 
through  the  tunnel.  The  train  stopped  at  Seventy-second 
Street  and  at  Ninety-sixth  Street  and  at  many  other 
stations.  People  got  on  or  off.  But  Kedzie  was  too 
well  entertained  to  care  to  leave. 

She  did  not  know  that  the  train  ran  under  a  corner  of 
Central  Park  and  beneath  the  Harlem  River.  She  would 
have  liked  to  know.  To  run  under  a  river  would  tell 
well  at  home. 

Suddenly  the  Subway  shot  out  into  midair  and  became  a 
superway.  The  street  which  had  been  invisible  above  was 
suddenly  visible  below,  with  street-cars  on  it.  Also  there 
was  a  still  higher  track  overhead.  Three  layers  of  tracks ! 
It  was  heavenly,  the  noise  they  made!  She  enjoyed 
hearing  the  mounting  numbers  of  the  streets  shouted 
antiphonally  by  the  gentlemen  at  either  door. 

At  iSoth  Street,  however,  the  train  stopped  for  good, 
and  the  handsome  young  man  at  the  front  door  called, 
' '  All  out !"  He  said  it  to  Kedzie  with  a  beautiful  courtesy, 
adding,  "This  is  as  far  as  we  go,  lady." 

That  was  tremendous,  to  be  called  "lady."  Kedzie 
tried  to  get  out  like  one.  She  smiled  at  the  guard  and  left 
his  protection  with  some  reluctance.  He  studied  her  as 
she  walked  along  the  platform.  She  seemed  to  meet  with 
his  approval  in  general,  and  in  particular.  He  sighed 
when  she  turned  out  of  his  sight. 

The  station  here  was  very  high  up  in  the  world.     Kedzi& 

56 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

counted  seventy-seven  steps  on  her  way  to  the  level.  She 
was  distressed  to  find  herself  in  a  shabby,  noisy  com- 
munity where  streets  radiated  in  six  directions.  Her  fears 
were  true.  She  had  left  New  York.  She  must  get  home 
to  it  again. 

She  walked  back  along  the  way  she  had  come,  on  the 
sidewalk  beneath  the  tracks.  This  meandering  street  was 
called  Boston  Road.  Kedzie  had  no  ideas  as  to  the  dis- 
tance of  Boston.  She  only  knew  that  New  York  was  good 
enough  for  her— the  New  York  of  Forty-second  Street, 
of  course.  Kedzie  did  not  know  yet  how  many,  many 
New  Yorks  there  are  in  New  York. 

She  was  discouraged  by  her  present  surroundings. 
Along  the  rough  and  neglected  streets  were  little  rows  of 
shanty  shops,  and  there  were  stubby  frame  residences. 

There  was  one  two-story  cottage  snuggling  against  a 
hill;  it  had  a  little  picket  fence  with  a  little  picket  gate 
leading  to  a  little  ragged  yard  with  an  old  apple-tree  in  it; 
and  there  was  a  pair  of  steps  up  to  the  front  door,  and  a 
rough  trellis  from  there  to  the  woodshed  with  a  grape- 
vine draped  across  it.  It  was  of  the  James  Whitcomb 
Riley  school  of  architecture — a  house  with  a  woodshed. 

Rich  people  who  were  tired  of  the  city,  and  chanced 
that  way,  used  to  pause  and  look  at  that  little  nook  and 
admire  its  meek  attractiveness.  It  made  them  homesick. 

But  Kedzie  was  sick  of  home.  This  lowly  cot  was  too 
much  like  her  father's.  It  had  a  sign  on  it  that  said, 
"To  Let."  It  was  a  funny  expression.  Kedzie  studied 
it  a  long  time  before  she  decided  that  it  was  New-Yorkese 
for  "For  Rent." 

She  shuddered  at  the  idea  of  renting  or  letting  such  a 
house — especially  as  it  was  so  close  to  a  church,  a  small, 
seedy,  frame  church  nearly  all  roof,  a  narrow-chested, 
slope-shouldered  churchlet  with  a  frame  cupola  for  a 
steeple.  It  looked  abandoned,  and  an  ivy  flourished  on  it 
so  impudently  that  it  almost  closed  the  unfrequented 
portal. 

57 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

The  bill-boards  here  made  mighty  interesting  reading. 
There  were  magnificent  works  of  an  art  on  the  grand  scale 
of  a  people's  gallery;  one  structure  promulgated  the 
glories  of  a  notorious  chewing-gum.  There  was  a  gorgeous 
proclamation  of  a  fashionable  glove  with  a  picture  of  an 
extremely  swell  slim  lady  all  dressed  up — or  rather  all 
dressed  down — for  the  opera. 

Kedzie  prayed  the  Lord  to  send  her  some  day  a  pair  of 
full-length  white  kid  gloves  like  those.  As  for  a  box  at  the 
opera,  she  would  take  her  chances  on  the  sunniest  cloud- 
sofa  in  heaven  for  an  evening  at  the  opera.  And  for  a 
dress  cut  deckolett  and  an  aigret  in  her  hair,  she  would 
have  swapped  a  halo  and  a  set  of  wings. 

There  was  no  end  to  the  big  pages  of  this  literature,  and 
Kedzie  read  dozens  of  them  from  right  to  left  in  a  south- 
erly direction.  Finally  she  abandoned  the  Boston  Road 
and  walked  over  to  a  better-groomed  avenue  with  more  of 
a  city  atmosphere. 

But  she  saw  a  police  signal-station  at  17  5th  Street, 
and  she  thought  it  better  to  abandon  the  Southern  Boule- 
vard. She  was  not  sure  of  her  police  yet,  and  she  had 
an  uneasy  feeling  that  her  father  and  mother  were  at  that 
moment  telling  their  troubles  to  some  policeman  who 
would  shortly  be  putting  her  description  in  the  hands  of 
detectives.  She  did  not  want  to  be  arrested.  Poppa 
might  try  to  spank  her  again.  She  did  not  want  to  have 
to  murder  anybody,  especially  her  parents.  She  liked 
them  better  when  she  was  away  from  them. 

She  hated  to  waste  five  cents  on  a  street-car,  but  finally 
she  achieved  the  extravagance.  The  car  went  sliding  and 
grinding  through  an  amazing  amount  of  paved  street,  with 
an  inconceivable  succession  of  apartment-houses  and 
shops. 

At  length  she  reached  a  center  of  what  she  most  desired 
— noise  and  mob  and  hurry.  At  1 64th  Street  she  came  to  a 
star  of  streets  where  the  Third  Avenue  Elevated  collabo- 
rated with  the  surface-cars  and  the  loose  traffic  to  create  a 

58 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

delicious  pandemonium.  She  loved  those  high  numbers — 
a  hundred  and  eighty  streets!  Beautiful!  At  home 
Main  Street  dissolved  into  pastures  at  Tenth  Street. 

She  wanted  to  find  Main  Street  in  New  York  and  see 
what  First  Street  looked  like.  It  was  probably  along  the 
Atlantic  .Ocean.  That  also  was  one  of  the  things  she  must 
see — her  first  ocean ! 

But  while  Kedzie  was  reveling  in  the  splendors  of  i64th 
Street  her  eye  was  caught  by  the  gaudy  placards  of  a 
moving-picture  emporium.  There  was  a  movie-palace  at 
home.  It  was  the  town's  one  metropolitan  charm. 

There  was  a  lithograph  here  that  reached  out  and 
caught  her  like  a  bale-hook.  It  represented  an  impos- 
sibly large-eyed  girl,  cowering  behind  a  door  on  whose 
other  side  stood  a  handsome  devil  in  evening  dress. 
He  was  tugging  villainously  at  a  wicked  mustache,  and 
his  eyes  were  thrillingly  leery.  Behind  a  curtain  stood 
a  young  man  who  held  a  revolver  and  waited.  The 
title  of  the  picture  decided  Kedzie.  It  was  ' '  The  Vampire's 
Victim;  a  Scathing  Exposure  of  High  Society." 

Kedzie  studied  hard.  For  all  her  gipsy  wildness,  she 
had  a  trace  of  her  father's  parsimony,  and  she  hated  to 
spend  money  that  was  her  very  own.  Some  of  the  dimes 
and  quarters  in  that  little  purse  had  been  there  for  ages. 
Besides,  her  treasury  would  have  to  sustain  her  for  an 
indefinite  period. 

But  she  wanted  to  know  about  high  society.  She  was 
not  sure  what  scathing  meant,  or  what  the  pronunciation 
of  it  was.  She  rather  inclined  to  "scat-ting."  Anyway, 
it  looked  important. 

She  stumbled  into  the  black  theater  and  found  a  seat 
among  mysterious  persons  dully  silhouetted  against  the 
screen.  This  was  none  of  the  latter-day  temples  where  mov- 
ing pictures  are  run  through  with  cathedral  solemnity,  soft 
lights,  flowers,  orchestral  uplift,  and  nearly  classic  song. 
This  was  a  dismal  little  tunnel  with  one  end  lighted  by  the 
twinkling  pictures.  Tired  mothers  came  here  to  escape 

59 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

from  their  children,  and  children  came  here  to  escape  from 
their  tired  mothers.  The  plots  of  the  pictures  were  as 
trite  and  as  rancid  as  spoiled  meat,  but  they  suited  the 
market.  This  plot  concerned  a  beautiful  girl  who  came 
to  the  city  from  a  small  town.  She  was  a  good  girl,  be- 
cause she  came  from  a  small  town  and  had  poor  parents. 

She  was  dazzled  a  little,  however,  by  the  attentions  of 
a  swell  devil  of  great  wealth,  and  she  neglected  her  poor — 
therefore  honest — lover  temporarily.  She  learned  the  fear- 
ful joys  of  a  limousined  life,  and  was  lured  into  a  false  mar- 
riage which  nearly  proved  her  ruin.  The  villain  got  a 
fellow-demon  to  pretend  to  be  a  minister,  put  on  false  hair, 
reverse  his  collar,  and  read  the  wedding  ceremony;  and  the 
heroine  was  taken  to  the  rich  man's  home. 

The  rooms  were  as  full  of  furniture  as  a  furniture-store, 
and  so  Kedzie  knew  it  was  a  swell  home.  Also  there  was 
a  butler  who  walked  and  acted  like  a  wooden  man. 

The  heroine  was  becomingly  shy  of  her  husband,  but 
finally  went  to  her  room,  where  a  swell  maid  put  her  to 
bed  (with  a  proper  omission  of  critical  moments)  in  a  bed 
that  must  have  cost  a  million  dollars.  Some  womanly, 
though  welching,  intuition  led  the  bride  to  lock  her  door. 
Some  manly  intuition  led  the  hero  to  enter  the  gardens  and 
climb  in  through  a  window  into  the  house.  If  he  had  not 
been  a  hero  it  would  have  been  a  rather  reprehensible  act. 
But  to  the  heroes  all  things  are  pure.  He  prowled  through 
the  house  heroically  without  attracting  attention.  Every 
step  of  his  burglarious  progress  was  applauded  by  the 
audience. 

The  hero  hid  behind  one  of  those  numberless  portieres 
that  hang  everywhere  in  the  homes  of  the  moveaux  riches, 
and  waited  with  drawn  revolver  for  the  dastard  bridegroom 
to  attempt  his  hellish  purpose. 

The  locked  door  thwarted  the  villain  for  the  time,  and 
he  decided  to  wait  till  he  got  the  girl  aboard  one  of  those 
yachts  which  rich  people  keep  for  evil  purposes.  Thus  the 
villain  unwittingly  saved  the  hero  from  the  painful  neoes- 

60 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

sity  of  committing  murder,  and  added  another  reel  to  the 
picture. 

It  is  not  necessary  and  it  might  infringe  a  copyright 
to  tell  the  rest  of  the  story.  It  would  be  insulting  to  say 
that  the  false  minister,  repenting,  told  the  hero,  who  told 
the  heroine  after  he  rescued  her  from  the  satanic  yacht 
and  various  other  temptations.  Of  course  she  married 
the  plain-clothes  man  and  lived  happily  ever  after  in  a  sin- 
proof  cottage  with  a  garden  of  virtuous  roses. 

Kedzie  was  so  excited  that  she  annoyed  the  people 
about  her,  but  she  learned  again  the  invaluable  lesson 
that  rich  men  are  unfit  companions  for  nice  girls.  Kedzie 
resolved  to  prove  this  for  herself.  She  prayed  for  a 
chance  to  be  tempted  so  that  she  might  rebuke  some  swell 
villain.  But  she  intended  to  postpone  the  rebuke  until 
she  had  seen  a  lot  of  high  life.  This  would  serve  a  double 
purpose:  Kedzie  would  get  to  see  more  millionairishness, 
and  the  rebuke  would  be  more — more  "scatting."  It  is 
hard  even  to  think  a  word  you  cannot  pronounce. 

Kedzie  gained  one  thing  further  from  the  pictures — a 
new  name.  She  had  been  musing  incessantly  on  choosing 
one.  She  had  always  hated  both  Thropp  and  Kedzie,  and 
had  counted  on  marriage  to  reform  her  surname.  But  she 
could  not  wait.  She  wanted  an  alias  at  once.  The  police 
were  after  her.  The  heroine  of  this  picture  was  named 
Anita  Adair,  and  the  name  just  suited  Kedzie.  She  in- 
tended to  be  known  by  it  henceforth. 

She  had  not  settled  on  what  town  she  had  come  from. 
Perhaps  she  would  decide  to  have  been  born  in  New  York. 
She  rather  fancied  the  notion  of  being  a  daughter  of  a 
terrible  swell  family  who  wanted  to  force  her  to  marry  a 
wicked  old  nobleman,  but  she  ran  away  sooner  than  sub- 
mit to  the  "z'w/an?" — that  was  the  way  Kedzie  pro- 
nounced it  in  her  head.  It  was  a  word  she  had  often  seen 
but  never  heard. 

Meanwhile  she  was  sure  of  one  thing:  Kedzie  Thropp 
was  annihilated  and  Anita  Adair  was  born  full  grown. 

61 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  film  Kedzie  was  saddened  by 
a  ballad  sung  by  an  adenoid  tenor.  The  song  was  a 
scatting  exposure  of  the  wickedness  of  Broadway.  The 
refrain  touched  Kedzie  deeply,  and  alarmed  her  somewhat. 
It  reiterated  and  reiterated: 

"There's  a  browkin  hawt  for  everee  light  ton  Broad- 
way-ee." 

Kedzie  began  to  fear  that  she  would  furnish  one  more. 
And  yet  it  would  be  rather  nice  to  have  a  broken  heart, 
Kedzie  thought,  especially  on  Broadway. 


CHAPTER  X 

IV^EDZIE  watched  the  moving  picture  twice  through. 
iS.  The  second  time  it  was  not  so  good.  It  lacked 
spontaneity  and  sincerity. 

At  the  first  vision  everything  seemed  to  rise  from  what 
preceded;  people  did  what  was  natural  or  noble.  The 
second  time  it  looked  mechanical,  rehearsed;  the  thrill 
was  gone,  too,  because  she  knew  positively  that  the  hero 
was  not  really  going  to  shoot,  and  the  villain  was  not 
really  going  to  break  through  the  door. 

She  wandered  forth  in  a  tragedy  of  disillusionment. 
That  was  really  the  cause  of  the  pout  that  seemed  to  say, 
"Please  kiss  me!"  She  pouted  because  when  she  got 
what  she  wanted  she  no  longer  wanted  it. 

There  are  hearts  like  cold  storage.  They  keep  what 
they  get  fresh  and  cool;  and  there  are  hearts  that  spoil 
whatever  is  intrusted  to  them.  In  Kedzie's  hot  young 
soul,  things  spoiled  soon. 

She  was  hungry,  and  she  could  not  resist  the  impulse 
to  enter  a  cheap  restaurant.  She  did  not  know  how 
cheap  it  was.  It  was  as  good  as  the  best  restaurant  in 
Nimrim,  Mo. 

Kedzie  ordered  unfamiliar  things  for  the  sake  of  educat- 
ing her  illiterate  mid- Western  stomach.  She  ordered  clam 
chowder  and  Hamburger  steak,  spaghetti  Italienne,  lob- 
ster salad,  and  Neapolitan  ice-cream.  She  ate  too  much 
— much  too  much. 

The  total  bill  was  ninety-five  cents,  and  she  was  ter- 
rified. She  had  thought  her  father  a  miser  for  com- 
plaining of  the  breakfast  bill  of  eleven-odd  dollars  at  the 
Biltmore,  but  that  was  his  money,  not  hers. 

63 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

When  she  finished  her  meal  she  did  not  dream  of 
tipping  the  waiter.  He  seemed  not  to  expect  it,  but  he 
grinned  as  he  asked  her  to  come  again.  He  hoped  she 
would.  He  went  to  the  door  and  stared  after  her,  sadly, 
longingly.  The  dishes  she  had  left  he  carried  away  with 
an  elegiac  solemnity. 

The  streets  were  darkened  now  and  the  lights  bewildered 
Kedzie.  The  town  grew  more  solemn.  It  withdrew  into 
itself.  People  were  going  home. 

Kedzie  did  not  know  where  to  go.  She  walked  for  fear 
of  standing  still.  The  noise  fatigued  her.  She  turned 
west  to  escape  it  and  found  a  little  park  at  i6ist  Street. 

Many  streets  flowed  thence.  There  were  ten  ways  to 
follow,  and  she  could  not  choose  one  among  them. 

She  was  pretty,  but  she  had  not  learned  the  commercial 
value  of  her  beauty.  She  was  alone  in  the  great,  vicious 
city,  but  nobody  had  threatened  her.  Nearly  everybody 
had  paid  her  charm  the  tribute  of  a  stare  or  a  smile,  but 
nobody  had  been  polite  enough  to  flatter  her  with  a 
menace. 

She  was  very  pretty.  But  then  there  are  so  very  many 
very  pretty  girls  in  every  big  city!  June  with  her  mill- 
ions of  exquisite  roses  is  no  richer  in  beauty  than  New 
York.  Yet  even  New  York  cannot  keep  all  her  beauties 
supplied  with  temptation  and  peril  all  the  time. 

Kedzie  sat  on  the  bench  wondering  which  of  the  ten 
ways  to  go.  It  turned  late,  but  she  could  not  decide. 
She  began  to  be  a  little  hungry  again,  but  she  was  always 
that,  and  she  told  her  ever-willing  young  stomach  that  her 
late  luncheon  would  have  to  be  an  early  dinner. 

As  she  sat  still,  people  began  to  peer  at  her  through  the 
enveiling  dark.  A  tipsy  brewery  truck-driver  who  had  ab- 
sorbed too  much  of  his  own  cargo  sank  down  by  her  side. 
He  could  not  see  Kedzie  through  the  froth  in  his  brain, 
but  she  found  him  fearful.  When  he  began  to  talk  to 
himself  she  fled. 

She  saw  a  brilliantly  lighted  street-car,  and  she  boarded 

64 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

it.  She  was  all  turned  around,  and  the  car  twisted  and 
turned  as  it  proceeded.  She  did  not  realize  that  it  was 
going  north  till  she  heard  the  conductor  calling  in  higher 
and  higher  street  numbers.  Then  she  understood,  with 
tired  wrath,  that  she  was  outbound  once  more.  She 
wanted  to  go  toward  the  heart  of  town,  but  she  could  not 
afford  to  get  off  without  her  nickel's  worth  of  ride. 

The  car  was  all  but  empty  when  the  conductor  called  to 
a  drowsy  old  lady,  his  penultimate  passenger: 

"Hunneran  Semty-seckin !  Hey,  lady!  You  ast  me 
to  leave  you  off  at  Hunneran  Semty-seckin,  didn't  yah?" 

The  woman  was  startled  from  her  reverie  and  gasped: 

"Dear  me!  is  this  a  Hundred  and  Seventy-second?" 

"Thass  wat  I  said,  didn't  I?" 

She  evicted  herself  with  a  manner  of  apology  for  in- 
truding on  the  conductor's  attention. 

Now  Kedzie  was  alone  with  the  man.  His  coyote 
bark  changed  to  an  insinuating  murmur.  He  sat  down 
near  Kedzie,  took  up  an  abandoned  evening  paper,  and 
said: 

"Goin'  all  the  way,  Cutie,  or  how  about  it?" 

"I'm  get'n'  off  here!"  said  Kedzie,  with  royal  scorn. 
She  resented  his  familiarity,  and  she  was  afraid  that  he 
was  going  to  prove  dangerous.  Perhaps  he  meant  to 
abduct  her  in  this  chariot. 

Being  a  street-car  conductor,  the  poor  fellow  neither 
understood  women  nor  was  understood  by  them.  He 
accepted  Kedzie's  blow  with  resignation.  He  helped  her 
down  the  step,  his  hand  mellowing  her  arm  and  finding 
it  ripe. 

She  flung  him  a  rebukeful  glare  that  he  did  not  get. 
He  gave  the  two  bells,  and  the  car  went  away  like  a  big 
lamp,  leaving  the  world  to  darkness  and  to  Kedzie. 

She  walked  for  a  block  or  two  and  wondered  where  she 

should  sleep.     There  were  no  hotels  up  here,  and  she 

would  have  been  afraid  of  their  prices.     Probably  they 

all  charged  as  much  as  the  Biltmore.     At  that  rate,  her 

5  65 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

money  would  just  about  pay  for  the  privilege  of  walking 
in  and  out  again. 

Boarding-houses  there  might  have  been,  but  they  bore 
no  distinguishing  marks. 

Kedzie  stood  and  strolled  until  she  was  completely 
fagged.  Then  she  encountered  a  huge  mass  of  shadowy 
foliage,  a  park — Crotona  Park,  although  of  course  Kedzie 
did  not  know  its  name. 

There  were  benches  at  the  edge,  and  concreted  paths 
went  glimmering  among  vagueness  of  foliage,  with  here 
and  there  searing  arc-lights  as  bright  as  immediate  moons. 
Kedzie  dropped  to  the  first  bench,  but  a  couple  of  lovers 
next  to  her  protested,  and  she  retreated  into  the  park 
a  little. 

She  felt  a  trifle  chilled  with  weariness  and  discourage- 
ment and  the  lack  of  light.  She  clasped  her  arms  to- 
gether as  a  kind  of  wrap  and  huddled  herself  close  to  her- 
self. Her  head  teetered  and  tottered  and  gradually  sank 
till  her  delicate  chin  rested  in  her  delicate  bosom.  Her 
big  hat  shaded  her  face  as  in  a  deep  blot  of  ink,  and  she 
slept. 

Unprotected,  pretty,  alone  in  the  wicked  city,  she  slept 
secure  and  unassailed. 


CHAPTER  XI 

MISS  ANITA  ADAIR  (nte  Kedzie  Thropp)  had  dozed 
upon  her  cozy  park  bench  for  an  uncertain  while 
when  her  bedroom  was  invaded  by  visitors  who  did  not 
know  she  was  there. 

Kedzie  was  wakened  by  murmurous  voices.  A  man  was 
talking  to  a  woman.  They  might  have  been  Romeo  and 
Juliet  in  Verona  for  the  poetry  of  their  grief,  but  they  were 
in  the  Bronx  Borough,  and  he  was  valet  and  she  a  house- 
maid, or  so  Kedzie  judged.  The  man  was  saying  in  a 
dialect  new  to  Kedzie: 

"Ah,  ma  pauvre  p'tite  amie,  for  why  you  have  a  jalousie 
of  my  patrie?" 

There  was  a  vague  discussion  from  which  Kedzie 
drowsily  gleaned  that  the  man  was  going  to  cross  the  sea 
to  the  realm  of  destruction.  The  girl  was  jealous  of  some- 
body that  he  called  his  patrie,  and  he  miserably  endeavored 
to  persuade  her  that  a  man  could  love  both  his  patrie  and 
his  amie,  and  yet  give  his  life  to  the  former  at  her  call. 

Kedzie  was  too  sleepy  to  feel  much  curiosity.  A 
neighbor's  woe  is  a  soothing  lullaby.  In  the  very  crisis  of 
their  debate,  the  little  moan  of  Kedzie's  yawn  startled 
and  silenced  the  farewellers.  They  stole  away  unseen, 
and  she  knew  no  more  of  them. 

Hours  later  Kedzie  woke,  shivering  and  afraid.  All 
about  her  was  a  woodland  hush,  but  the  circle  of  the 
horizon  was  dimly  lighted,  as  if  there  were  houses  on  fire 
everywhere  in  the  distance. 

Poor  Kedzie  was  a-cold  and  filled  with  the  night  dread. 
She  was  afraid  of  burglars,  mice,  ghosts.  She  was  still 

67 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

more  afraid  to  leave  her  bench  and  hunt  through  those 
deep  shadows  for  her  lost  New  York.  Her  drugged  brain 
fell  asleep  as  it  wrestled  with  its  fears.  Her  body  pro- 
tested at  its  couch.  All  her  limbs  like  separate  serpents 
tried  to  find  resting-places.  They  could  not  stretch 
themselves  out  on  the  bench.  Fiends  had  placed  cast- 
iron  braces  at  intervals  to  prevent  people  from  doing  just 
that.  Kedzie  did  not  know  that  it  is  against  the  law  of 
New  York,  if  not  of  Nature,  to  sleep  on  park  benches. 

Half  unconsciously  she  slipped  down  to  the  ground 
and  found  a  bed  on  the  warm  and  dewless  grass.  Her 
members  wriggled  and  adjusted  themselves.  Her  head 
rolled  over  on  one  round  arm  for  a  pillow;  the  other  arm 
bent  itself  above  her  head,  and  finding  her  hat  in  the 
way,  took  out  the  pins,  lifted  the  hat  off,  set  it  on  the 
ground,  put  the  pins  back  in  and  returned  to  its  place 
about  her  hair — all  without  disturbing  Kedzie 's  beauty 
sleep. 

Her  two  arms  were  all  the  maids  that  Kedzie  had  ever 
had.  They  were  as  kind  to  her  as  they  could  be — devoted 
almost  exclusively  to  her  comfort. 


CHAPTER  XII 

"T/^EDZIE  slept  alone  in  a  meadow,  and  slept  well. 
lV  Youth  spread  the  sward  with  mattresses  of  eider- 
down, and  curtained  out  the  stars  with  silken  tapestry. 
If  she  dreamed  at  all,  it  was  with  the  full  franchise  of 
youth  in  the  realm  of  ambition.  If  she  dreamed  herself 
a  great  lady,  then  fancy  promised  her  no  more  than  truth 
should  redeem.  Charity  Coe  Cheever  had  a  finer  bed  but 
a  poorer  sleep,  if  any  at  all.  She  had  a  secretary  to  do 
her  chores  for  her  and  to  tell  her  her  engagements — where 
she  was  to  go  and  what  she  had  promised  and  what  she 
had  better  do.  Charity  dictated  letters  and  committee 
reports;  she  even  dictated  checks  on  her  bank-account 
(which  kept  filling  up  faster  than  she  drew  from  it). 

While  Kedzie  was  trying  to  fit  her  limber  frame  among 
the  little  hillocks  and  tussocks  on  the  ground,  Charity  Coe 
was  sitting  at  her  dressing-table,  gazing  into  the  mirror, 
but  seeing  beyond  her  own  image.  Her  lips  moved,  and 
her  secretary  wrote  down  what  she  said  aloud,  and  her 
maid  was  kneeling  to  take  off  Charity  Coe's  ballroom  slip- 
pers and  slip  on  her  bedroom  ditto.  The  secretary  was  so 
sleepy  that  she  tried  to  keep  her  eyes  open  by  agitating 
the  lids  violently.  The  maid  was  trying  to  keep  from  fall- 
ing forward  across  her  mistress's  insteps  and  sleeping  there. 

But  Charity  was  wide-awake — wild  awake.  Her  soul 
was  not  in  her  dictation,  but  in  her  features,  which  she 
studied  in  the  mirror  as  a  rich  man  studies  his  bank- 
account.  Charity  was  wondering  if  she  had  wrecked  her 
beauty  beyond  repair,  or  if  she  could  fight  it  back. 

Charity  Coe,  being  very  rich,  had  a  hundred  arms  and 

69 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

hands  and  feet,  eyes  and  ears,  while  Kedzie  had  but  two 
of  each.  Charity  had  some  one  to  make  her  clothes  for 
her  and  cut  up  her  bread  and  meat  and  fetch  the  wood  for 
her  fire  and  put  her  shoes  on  and  take  them  off.  She 
even  had  her  face  washed  for  her  and  her  hair  brushed, 
and  somebody  trimmed  her  finger-nails  and  swept  out  her 
room,  sewed  on  her  buttons  and  buttoned  them  up  or 
unbuttoned  them,  as  she  pleased. 

If  Kedzie  had  known  how  much  Charity  was  having 
done  for  her  she  would  have  had  a  colic  of  envy.  But  she 
slept  while  Charity  could  not.  Charity  could  not  pay 
anybody  to  sleep  for  her  or  stay  awake  for  her,  or  love 
or  kiss  for  her,  and  her  wealth  could  not  buy  the  fidelity 
of  the  one  man  whose  fidelity  she  wanted  to  own. 

Charity  had  done  work  that  Kedzie  would  have  flinched 
from.  Charity  had  lived  in  a  field  hospital  and  roughed 
it  to  a  loathsome  degree.  She  had  washed  the  faces  and 
bodies  of  grimy  soldiers  from  the  bloody  ditches  of  the 
war-front;  she  had  been  chambermaid  to  gas-blinded 
peasants  and  had  done  the  hideous  chores  that  follow 
operations.  Now  with  a  maid  to  change  her  slippers  and 
a  secretary  to  make  up  her  mind,  and  a  score  of  servants 
within  call,  she  was  afraid  that  she  had  squandered  her 
substance  in  spendthrift  alms.  She  was  a  prodigal 
benefactress  returned  from  her  good  works  too  late,  per- 
haps. She  wondered  and  took  stock  of  her  charms.  She 
rather  underrated  them. 

Peter  Cheever  had  been  extravagantly  gallant  the 
morning  after  her  return  from  the  mountains.  He  had 
added  the  last  perfect  tribute  of  suspicion  and  jealousy. 
They  had  even  breakfasted  together.  She  had  dragged 
herself  down  to  the  dining-room,  and  he  had  neglected 
his  morning  paper,  and  lingered  for  mere  chatter.  He 
had  telephoned  from  his  office  to  ask  her  for  the  noon 
hour,  too.  He  had  taken  her  to  the  Bankers'  Club  for 
luncheon  in  the  big  Blue  Room.  He  had  then  suggested 
that  they  dine  together  and  go  to  any  theater  she  liked. 

70 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Charity  Coe's  head  was  turned  by  all  this  attention. 
"Three  meals  a  day  and  a  show  with  her  own  husband" 
was  going  the  honeymoon  pace. 

But  she  returned  to  the  normal  speed,  for  he  did  not 
come  home  to  dress  or  to  dine  or  to  go  to  the  theater.  No 
word  came  from  him  until  Charity  Coe  was  all  dressed;  then 
a  clerk  telephoned  her  that  her  husband  regretted  he 
could  not  come  home,  as  he  had  to  rush  for  the  Philadelphia 
train. 

Charity  could  not  quite  disbelieve  this,  nor  quite  be- 
lieve. She  had  spent  the  evening  debating  married  love 
and  honeymoons  that  wax  and  wane  and  wax  again,  and 
a  wife's  duty  and  her  rights  and  might-have-beens,  per- 
hapses,  and  if-only's. 

Charity  had  put  on  her  jewels,  which  had  not  been 
taken  out  of  the  safe  for  years,  but  he  had  not  arrived. 
Alarm  and  resentment  wrestled  for  her  heart;  they  pros- 
pered alternately.  Now  she  trembled  with  fear  for  her 
husband;  now  she  smothered  with  wrath  at  his  indif- 
ference to  her. 

Who  was  he  that  he  should  keep  her  waiting,  and  who 
were  the  Cheevers  that  they  should  break  engagements 
with  the  Goes?  It  was  only  at  such  times  that  her  pride 
of  birth  flared  in  her,  and  then  only  enough  to  sustain  her 
through  grievous  humiliations. 

But  what  are  humiliations  that  we  should  mind  them 
so?  They  come  to  everybody  in  turn,  and  they  are  as 
relentless  and  impersonal  as  the  sun  marching  around  the 
sky.  Kedzie  had  hers,  and  Charity  hers,  and  the  street- 
car conductor  Kedzie  had  rebuffed  had  his,  and  the  Czar 
with  his  driven  army  had  his,  with  more  to  come,  and  the 
Kaiser  with  his  victorious  army  had  his,  with  more  to 
come.  Even  Peter  Cheever  had  his  in  plenty,  and  of  a 
peculiar  secret  sort. 

He  had  honestly  planned  to  spend  his  evening  with  his 
wife.  She  seemed  to  be  coming  back  into  style  with  him. 
But  the  long  arm  of  the  telephone  brought  him  within  the 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

reach  of  Zada  L'Etoile.  Zada  had  plans  of  her  own  for  his 
evening — dinner,  theater,  supper,  dance  till  dawn.  Peter 
had  answered,  gently: 

"Sorry,  but  I'm  booked." 

Zada  had  seemed  to  come  right  through  the  wire  at  him. 

"With  that wife  of  yours,  of  course!" 

She  had  used  a  word  that  fascinated  the  listening 
Central,  who  was  lucky  enough  to  transact  a  good  deal 
of  Zada's  telephone  business.  Central  could  almost  see 
Peter  flush  as  he  shook  his  head  and  answered: 

"Not  necessarily.     It's  business." 

"You'd  better  make  it  your  business  not  to  go  out  with 
that  woman,  anywhere,"  Zada  had  threatened.  "It's  in- 
decent." 

Peter  winced.  A  wife  is  not  ordinarily  called  "that 
woman."  Peter  sighed.  It  was  a  pretty  pass  when  a 
man  could  not  be  allowed  to  go  to  the  theater  with  his 
own  wife.  Yet  he  felt  that  Zada  was  right,  in  a  way. 
He  had  forfeited  the  privilege  of  a  domestic  evening. 
He  was  afraid  to  brave  Zada's  fantastic  rages.  He  could 
best  protect  Charity  Coe  by  continuing  to  ignore  her. 

He  consented  to  Zada's  plan  and  promised  to  call  up 
his  wife.  Zada  took  a  brief  triumph  from  that.  But 
Peter  was  ashamed  and  afraid  to  speak  to  Charity  even 
across  the  wire.  He  knew  that  it  has  become  as  difficult 
to  lie  by  telephone  as  face  to  face.  The  treacherous  little 
quavers  in  the  voice  are  multiplied  to  a  rattle,  and  nothing 
can  ever  quite  imitate  sincerity.  So  much  is  bound  to  be 
over  or  under  done. 

Cheever  made  a  pretense  of  rushing  out  of  his  office. 
He  looked  at  his  watch  violently,  so  that  his  secretary 
should  be  startled — as  he  politely  pretended  to  be. 
Cheever  gasped,  then  rushed  his  lie  with  sickly  histrionism: 

"I  say,  Hudspeth,  call  up  my — Mrs.  Cheever,  will  you? 
And — er — tell  her  I've  had  to  dash  for  the  train  to — er — 
Phila" — cough — "delphia.  Tell  her  I'm  awfully  sorry 
about  to-night.  Back  to-morrow. ' ' 

72 


"Yessir,"  said  Hudspeth,  winking  at  the  gaping  sten- 
ographer, who  looked  exclamation  points  at  her  typewriter. 

Hudspeth  called  up  Mrs.  Cheever.  He  was  no  more 
convincing  than  Cheever  would  have  been.  A  note  of 
disgust  at  his  task  and  of  deprecatory  pity  for  Mrs. 
Cheever  influenced  his  tone. 

Charity  was  not  convinced,  but  she  could  hardly  reveal 
that  to  Hudspeth — although,  of  course,  she  did.  She  was 
betrayed  by  her  very  eagerness  to  be  a  good  sport  easily 
bamboozled. 

"Oh,  I  see.  Too  bad!  I  quite  understand.  Thank 
you;  Mr.  Hudspeth.  Good-by." 

She  did  not  hear  Hudspeth  growling  to  the  stenographer 
as  he  strolled  over  and  leaned  on  her  chair  unnecessarily — 
there  were  other  chairs  to  lean  on,  and  she  was  not  deaf: 

"Rotten  business!  He  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  him- 
self. A  nice  wife  like  that!" 

The  stenographer  sat  forward  and  snapped,  "You  got 
a  nice  wife  yourself."  She  was  a  little  jealous  of  Zada, 
perhaps — or  of  Mrs.  Cheever — or  of  both. 

Peter  left  his  office  to  escape  telephoning  Charity,  but 
he  could  imagine  how  the  message  crushed  her.  He  felt 
as  if  he  had  stepped  on  a  hurt  bird.  When  he  met  Zada 
he  kept  trying  to  be  patient  and  forgiving  with  her,  in 
spite  of  her  blame  worthiness. 

Zada  saw  through  his  sullenness,  and  for  a  little  moment 
was  proud  of  her  victory.  Then  she  began  to  suffer,  too. 
She  understood  the  frailty  of  her  hold  on  Cheever.  His 
loyalty  to  her  was  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  a  treachery,  and 
his  disloyalty  to  her  would  be  applauded  as  a  holy  deed. 
She  was  becoming  an  old  story  with  him,  as  Charity  had 
become  one. 

She  suffered  agonies  from  the  cloud  on  her  title  and  on 
her  name,  and  she  was  afraid  of  the  world.  A  woman 
of  her  sort  has  no  sympathy  to  expect ;  her  stock  in  trade 
vanishes  without  replenishment,  and  her  business  does  not 
build.  In  spite  of  herself  she  cannot  help  envying  and 

73 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

imitating  the  good  women.  As  a  certain  great  man  has 
confessed,  "There  is  so  much  good  in  the  worst  of  us," 
that  there  is  hardly  any  fun  in  being  bad.  It  is  almost 
impossible  to  be  very  bad  or  very  good  very  long  at  a  time. 

So  here  was  Zada  already  copying  a  virtuous  domestic 
woe  and  wondering  how  she  could  fasten  Cheever  to  her, 
win  him  truly  for  herself.  She  honestly  felt  that  she  could 
be  of  value  to  him,  and  make  more  of  a  man  of  him  than 
his  lawful  wife  ever  could.  Perhaps  she  was  right.  At 
any  rate,  she  was  miserable,  and  if  a  person  is  going  to  be 
miserable  she  might  as  well  be  right  while  her  misery  is 
going  on. 

Zada  had  dragged  Cheever  to  a  cabaret.  She  could 
lead  him  thither,  but  she  could  not  make  him  dance. 
She  was  one-stepping  unwillingly  with  a  young  cad  who 
insulted  her  subtly  in  everything  he  said  and  looked. 
She  could  not  resent  his  familiarity  beyond  sneering 
at  him  and  calling  him  a  foolish  cub.  She  left  him  and 
returned  to  the  table  where  Peter  Cheever  smoked  a  bitter 
cigar.  It  is  astonishing  how  sad  these  notorious  revelers 
look  in  repose.  They  are  solemner  than  deacons. 

"Come  on,  Peterkin — dance  the  rest  of  this  with  me," 
Zada  implored. 

Peterkin  shook  his  head.  He  felt  that  it  was  not  quite 
right  for  him  to  dance  in  public  with  such  persons.  He 
had  his  code.  Even  the  swine  have  their  ethics.  Zada 
put  her  hand  in  Cheever's  arm  and  cooed  to  him,  but  in 
vain. 

It  was  then  that  Jim  Dyckman  caught  sight  of  them. 
He  was  slinking  about  the  roofs  as  lonely  and  dejected  as 
a  homeless  cat. 

His  money  could  not  buy  him  companionship,  though 
his  acquaintance  was  innumerable  and  almost  anybody 
would  have  been  proud  to  be  spoken  to  by  such  a  money 
monster.  But  Jim  did  not  want  to  be  spoken  to  by  any- 
body who  was  ambitious  to  be  spoken  to  by  him.  He 
wanted  to  talk  to  Charity. 

74 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

He  eould  not  even  interest  himself  in  dissipation. 
There  was  plenty  of  it  for  sale,  and  markets  were  open  to 
him  that  were  not  available  to  average  means.  Many 
a  foolish  woman,  irreproachable  and  counting  herself  un- 
approachable, would  have  been  strangely  and  memorably 
perturbed  by  an  amorous  glance  from  Jim  Dyckman. 

But  Jim  did  not  want  what  he  could  get.  He  was 
hungry  for  the  companionship  of  Charity  Coe. 

When  he  saw  her  lord  and  master,  Peter  Cheever,  with 
Zada,  Dyckman  was  enraged.  Cheever  owned  Charity 
Coe;  he  could  flatter  her  with  a  smile,  beckon  her  with  a 
gesture,  caress  her  at  will,  or  leave  her  in  safe  deposit, 
while  he  spent  his  precious  hours  with  a  public  servant ! 

Dyckman  could  usually  afford  to  do  what  he  wanted  to. 
But  now  he  wanted  to  go  to  that  table  and  knock  the  heads 
of  Cheever  and  Zada  together;  he  wanted  to  make  their 
skulls  whack  like  castanets.  But  he  could  not  afford  to 
do  that. 

He  was  so  forlorn  that  he  went  home.  His  sumptuous 
chariot  with  ninety  race-horses  concealed  in  the  engine 
and  velvet  in  its  wheels  slid  him  as  on  smoothest  ice  to 
his  father's  home  near  the  cathedral.  The  house  was  like 
a  child  of  the  cathedral,  and  he  went  up  its  steps  as  a 
pauper  entering  a  cathedral.  He  gave  up  his  hat  and 
stick  and  went  past  the  masterpieces  on  his  walls  as  if  he 
were  a  visitor  to  the  Metropolitan  Art  Gallery  on  a  free 
day.  He  stumbled  up  the  stairway,  itself  a  work  of  art, 
like  a  boy  sent  to  bed  without  supper:  he  stumbled  up- 
stairs, wanting  to  cry  and  not  daring  to. 

His  valet  undressed  him  in  a  motherly  way  and  put  him 
to  bed.  The  valet  was  feeling  very  sad.  Dyckman  real- 
ized that  he  was  about  to  lose  Jules,  and  he  felt  more  dis- 
consolate. Still,  he  surprised  himself  by  breaking  out: 

"I  wish  you  wouldn't  go  to  the  war,  Jules." 

Jules  smiled  with  friendship  and  deference  subtly 
blended : 

"I  wish  I  would  not,  too,  sir." 

75 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"You  might  get  killed,  you  know." 

"Yes,  sir." 

"So  you're  a  soldier!     How  long  did  you  serve?" 

"Shree  years,  sir." 

"And  I  don't  know  the  first  thing  about  soldiering! 
I  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  myself!  Well — don't  get  killed, 
Jules." 

"Very  good,  sir." 

But  he  did. 

Jules  said,  "Good  night,  sir,"  and  faded  through  the 
door.  Dyckman  tossed  for  a  while.  Then  he  got  up  in 
a  rage  at  his  insomnia.  He  could  not  find  his  other  slip- 
per, and  he  stubbed  his  toe  plebeianly  against  an  aristo- 
cratic table.  He  cursed  and  limped  to  the  window  and 
glowered  down  into  the  street.  He  might  have  been  a 
jailbird  gaping  through  iron  bars.  He  could  not  get  out 
of  himself,  or  his  love  for  Charity. 

He  wondered  how  he  could  live  till  morning  without  her. 
He  went  to  his  telephone  to  call  her  and  hear  her  voice. 
He  lifted  the  receiver  and  when  Central  answered,  the 
cowardice  of  decency  compelled  him  from  his  resolve, 
and  he  shamefully  mumbled: 

"The  correct  time,  please." 

What  difference  did  it  make  to  him  what  hour  it  was? 
He  was  the  victim  of  eternity,  not  time. 

He  went  back  to  his  window-vigil  over  nothing  and 
fell  asleep  murmuring  the  biggest  swear  words  he  could 
remember.  In  his  weak  mood  they  had  the  effect  of  a 
spanked  boy's  last  whimpers. 

He  was  a  boy,  and  fate  was  spanking  him  hard.  He 
could  not  have  whom  he  wanted,  and  he  resolved  that 
there  was  nothing  else  in  the  world  to  want.  And  all  the 
time  there  was  a  girl  sleeping  out  in  Crotona  Park  on  the 
ground.  She  was  pretty  and  dangerous,  another  flower 
tossing  on  the  girl-tree. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

WHEN  the  daylight  whitened  the  black  air  it  found 
Dyckman  sprawled  along  his  window-lounge  and 
woke  him  to  the  disgust  of  another  morning.  He  had 
to  reach  up  and  draw  a  curtain  between  his  eyes  and  the 
hateful  sun. 

But  Kedzie  had  only  her  vigilant  arm.  It  slipped  down 
across  her  brow  like  a  watchful  nurse  coming  in  on  tip- 
toe to  protect  a  fretful  patient  from  broken  sleep. 

Kedzie  slept  on  and  on,  till  at  length  the  section  of 
Crotona  Park  immediately  beneath  her  refused  to  adapt 
itself  longer  to  her  squirming  search  for  soft  spots.  She 
sat  up  in  startled  confusion  at  the  unfamiliar  ceiling. 
The  wall-paper  was  not  at  all  what  ske  always  woke  to. 
At  first  she  guessed  that  she  must  have  fallen  out  of  bed 
with  a  vengeance.  Then  she  decided  she  had  fallen  out  of 
doors  and  windows  as  well,  and  into  the  front  yard. 

No,  these  bushes  were  not  those  bushes.  That  beech 
almost  overhead,  seen  from  below  by  sleep-thick  eyes,  was 
an  amazing  thing. 

She  had  drowsy  childhood  memories  of  being  carried 
up-stairs  by  her  father  and  put  to  bed  by  her  mother. 
Once  or  twice  she  had  wakened  with  her  head  to  the  foot- 
board and  endured  agonies  of  confusion  before  she  got  the 
universe  turned  round  right.  But  how  had  she  got  out- 
doors? Her  father  had  never  carried  her  down-stairs  and 
left  her  in  the  yard  before. 

At  last  she  saw  that  she  had  fallen  not  merely  out  of 
bed  and  out  of  doors,  but  out  of  town.  She  remembered 

77 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

her  wanderings  and  her  lying  down  to  sleep.     She  won- 
dered who  had  taken  her  hat  off  for  her. 

She  looked  about  for  somebody  to  ask  questions  of. 
There  was  nobody  to  be  seen.  There  were  a  few  house- 
tops peering  over  the  horizon  at  her. 

English  sparrows  were  jumping  here  and  there,  en- 
gaged in  their  everlasting  spats,  but  she  could  not  ask 
them. 

Kedzie  sat  up  straight,  her  arms  back  of  her,  her  feet 
erect  on  their  heels  at  a  distance,  like  suspicious  squirrels. 
She  yawned  against  the  back  of  her  wrist  and  began  to 
remember  her  escapade.  She  gurgled  with  laughter,  but 
she  felt  rumpled  and  lame,  and  not  in  the  least  like  Miss 
Anita  Adair.  She  almost  wished  she  were  at  home,  gaz- 
ing from  her  bed  to  the  washstand  and  hearing  her  mother 
puttering  about  in  the  kitchen  making  breakfast;  to 
Kedzie's  young  heart  it  was  the  superlative  human  luxury 
to  know  you  ought  to  get  up  and  not  get  up. 

She  clambered  to  her  feet  and  made  what  toilet  she 
could  while  her  seclusion  lasted.  She  shook  out  her  skirts 
like  feathers,  and  shoved  her  disheveled  hair  up  under  her 
hat  as  she  had  always  swept  the  dust  under  the  rug. 

She  was  overjoyed  to  find  that  her  hand-bag  had  not 
been  stolen.  The  powder-puff  would  serve  temporarily 
for  a  wash-basin.  The  small  change  in  her  purse  would 
postpone  starvation  or  surrender  for  a  while. 

She  walked  out  of  her  sleeping-porch  to  the  path.  A 
few  people  were  visible  now — workmen  and  workwomen 
taking  a  short-cut,  and  leisurely  gentlemen  out  of  a  job 
already  beginning  their  day's  work  of  holding  down 
benches.  No  one  asked  any  questions  or  showed  any 
interest  in  Kedzie. 

She  found  a  street-car  line,  made  sure  that  the  car  she 
took  was  bound  down-town,  and  resumed  her  effort  to 
recapture  New  York. 

Nearly  everybody  was  reading  one  morning  paper  or 
another,  but  Kedzie  was  not  interested  in  the  news. 

78 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

One  man  kept  brushing  her  nose  with  his  paper.  She 
was  angry  at  his  absence  of  mind,  but  she  did  not  notice 
that  her  nose  was  being  annoyed  by  her  own  name  in  the 
head-lines. 

She  rode  and  rode  and  rode  till  her  hunger  distracted 
her.  She  passed  restaurant  after  restaurant,  till  at  last 
she  could  stand  the  famine  no  longer.  She  got  down  from 
the  car  and  walked  till  she  came  to  a  bakery  lunch-room 
entitled,  "The  Bon-Ton  Bakery  by  Joe  Gidden."  It 
was  another  like  the  one  she  ate  in  the  day  before.  The 
same  kind  of  waiter  was  there,  a  dish-thrower  with  the 
manners  of  a  hostler. 

But  Kedzie  was  so  meek  after  her  night  on  the  ground 
that  she  was  flattered  by  his  grin.  "Skip"  Magruder 
was  his  title,  as  she  learned  in  time.  The  "Skip"  came 
to  him  from  a  curious  impediment  in  his  gait  that  caused 
him  to  drop  a  stitch  now  and  then. 

Not  long  afterward  Kedzie  was  so  far  beyond  this  poor 
hamstrung  stable-soul  that  she  could  not  hear  the  word 
skip  without  blushing  as  if  it  were  an  indecency.  It  was 
an  indecency,  too,  that  such  a  little  Aphrodite  should  be 
reduced  to  a  love-affair  with  such  a  dismal  Vulcan.  But 
if  it  could  happen  on  Olympus,  it  could  happen  on  earth. 

Proximity  is  said  to  breed  love,  but  priority  has  its 
virtues  no  less.  Skip  Magruder  was  the  first  New-Yorker 
to  help  Kedzie  in  her  hour  of  dismay,  and  she  thought 
him  a  great  and  powerful  being  profoundly  informed  about 
the  city  of  her  dreams. 

Skip  did  know  a  thing  or  two — possibly  three.  He  was 
a  New-Yorker  of  a  sort,  and  he  had  his  New  York  as  well 
as  Jim  Dyckman  had  his  or  Peter  Cheever  his.  He  sized 
Kedzie  up  for  the  ignoramus  she  was,  but  he  was  good  to 
her  in  so  far  as  his  skippy  faculties  permitted.  He 
dropped  the  paper  he  was  reading  when  she  wandered  in, 
and  won  her  at  once  by  not  calling  her  "Cutie." 

"Wat  '11  y'ave,  lady?"  he  said  as  he  skirled  a  plate  and 
a  glass  of  ice-water  along  the  oil-cloth  with  exquisite  skill, 

79 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

slapped  a  knife  and  fork  and  spoon  alongside,  and  flipped 
her  a  check  to  be  punched  as  she  ordered,  and  a  fly- 
frequented  bill  of  fare  to  order  from. 

Kedzie  was  stumped  by  the  array  of  dishes.  Skip 
volunteered  his  aid — suggested  "A  nor'nge,  ham  'n'eggs, 
a  plate  o'  wheats,  anna  cuppa  corfee." 

"All  right,"  said  Kedzie,  wondering  how  much  such  a 
barbecue  would  cost. 

Skip  went  to  bellow  the  order  through  a  sliding  door 
and  grab  it  when  it  should  be  pushed  forth  from  a  mysteri- 
ous realm.  Kedzie  picked  up  a  newspaper  that  Skip 
had  picked  up  after  some  early  client  left  it. 

Kedzie  glanced  at  the  front  page  and  saw  that  the 
Germans  had  taken  three  towns  and  the  Allies  one  trench. 
She  could  not  pronounce  the  towns,  and  trenches  meant 
nothing  in  her  life.  She  was  about  to  toss  the  paper  aside 
when  a  head-line  caught  her  eye.  She  read  with  pardon- 
able astonishment: 

SPANKED   GIRL  GONE 

Beautiful  Kedzie  Thropp,  Western  Society  Belle,  De- 
serts Her  Wealthy  Parents  at  Biltmore  and  Vanishes 
POLICE  OF  NATION  IN  SEAKCH 

Kedzie  felt  the  world  blow  up  about  her.  Her  name  was 
in  the  New  York  papers  the  second  morning  of  her  first 
visit !  Her  father  and  mother  were  called  wealthy !  She 
was  a  society  belle !  Who  could  ever  hereafter  deny  these 
ideal  splendors,  now  that  there  had  been  a  piece  in  the 
paper  about  them? 

But  dog  on  it!  Why  did  they  have  to  go  and  do  such 
a  thing  as  put  in  about  her  being  spanked?  She  blushed 
all  over  with  rage.  She  had  once  planned  to  go  back 
home  with  wondrous  gossip  of  her  visit  to  the  big  city. 
She  had  seen  herself  gloating  over  the  other  girls  who  had 
never  been  to  a  big  city. 

Now  they  would  all  give  her  the  laugh.  The  boys 

80 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

would  make  up  rhymes  and  yell  them  at  her  from  a  safe 
distance.  She  could  kill  her  father  for  being  so  mean  to 
her.  It  was  bad  enough  to  hurt  her  as  he  did,  but  to  go 
and  tattle  when  her  back  was  turned  was  simply  awful. 
She  could  never  go  home  now.  She'd  rather  die. 

Yet  the  paper  said  the  police  of  the  nation  were  search- 
ing for  her.  She  understood  how  Eliza  felt  with  the  blood- 
hounds after  her.  She  must  keep  out  of  sight  of  the 
police.  One  good  thing  was  the  picture  of  her  that  they 
printed  in  the  paper.  It  was  not  her  picture  at  all,  and 
nothing  like  her.  Besides,  she  had  selected  a  new  name. 
"Anita  Adair"  was  a  fine  disguise.  It  sounded  awful 
swell,  too.  It  sounded  like  her  folks  had  money.  She  was 
glad  to  be  rid  of  "Kedzie  Thropp."  She  would  never  be 
Kedzie  Thropp  again. 

Then  the  waiter  came  with  her  breakfast.  It  smelled 
so  grand  that  she  forgot  to  be  afraid  for  a  while.  The 
coffee  smoked  aroma;  the  ham  and  eggs  were  fragrant; 
and  the  orange  sent  up  a  golden  fume  of  delight. 

Skip  entered  into  conversation  as  she  entered  into  the 
orange.  "Where  you  woikin'  now?"  he  said. 

Kedzie  did  not  know  what  his  dialect  meant  at  first. 
When  she  learned  that  "woikin"'  was  the  same  as 
"wurrkin'"  she  confessed  that  she  had  no  job.  She 
trembled  lest  he  should  recognize  her  from  the  paper. 
He  eyed  her  narrowly  and  tried  to  flirt  with  her  across  the 
very  head-lines  that  told  who  she  was. 

She  could  not  be  sure  that  he  did  not  know  her.  He 
might  be  a  detective  in  disguise  looking  for  a  reward. 

Skip  had  been  reading  about  Kedzie  when  she  came  in. 
But  he  never  dreamed  that  she  was  she.  He  befriended 
her,  however,  out  of  the  goodness  of  his  heart  and  the 
desire  to  retain  her  in  the  neighborhood — also  out  of  re- 
spect for  the  good  old  brass  rule,  "Do  good  unto  others 
now,  so  that  they  will  do  good  to  you  later." 

Skip  told  Kedzie  that  he  knew  a  place  right  near 
where  a  goil  was  wanted.  When  he  told  her  that  it  was 

81 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

a  candy-store  she  was  elated.  A  candy-store  was  her  idea 
of  a  good  place  to  work. 

Skip  told  Kedzie  where  to  go  and  what  to  say,  and  to 
mention  that  Skip  sent  her. 

Skip  also  recommended  lodgings  next  his  own  in  the 
flat  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Rietzvoller,  delicatessen  merchants. 

"Nice  rooms  reasonable,"  he  said,  "and  I'll  be  near  to 
look  after  you." 

"You're  awful  fresh,  seems  to  me,  on  short  acquaint- 
ance," was  Kedzie' s  stinging  rebuke. 

Skip  laughed.  "Didn't  you  see  the  special-delivery 
stamp  on  me  forehead?  But  I  guess  you're  a  goil  can  take 
care  yourself." 

Kedzie  guessed  she  was.  But  she  was  in  need  of  help. 
Where  else  could  she  turn?  Whom  else  had  she  for  a 
beau  in  this  multitude  of  strangers?  So  she  laughed 
encouragingly. 

"All  right.     You're  elected.     Gimme  the  address." 

Skip  wrote  it  on  one  of  the  business  cards  of  the  bakery. 
He  added: 

"Another  thing:  I  know  a  good  expressman  will  rustle 
your  trunk  over  from —  Where  you  boardin'  at  now?" 

Kedzie  flushed.  She  could  hardly  tell  him  that  she 
had  boarded  in  a  park  up-town  somewhere. 

Skip  saw  that  she  was  confused.  He  showed  exquisite 
tact. 

"  I'm  wise,  goilie.  She's  holdin'  your  trunk  out  on  you. 
I  been  in  the  same  boat  m'self." 

Kedzie  was  willing  to  let  it  go  at  that,  but  Skip 
pondered : 

"But,  say — that  ain't  goin'  to  make  such  a  hell  of  a  hit — 
scuse  me,  lady — but  I  mean  if  you  tell  your  new  landlady 
about  -your  trunk  bein'  left  on  your  old  one,  that  ain't 
goin'  to  get  you  nothin'  but  the  door-slam  in  the  snoot. 
...  I  tell  you:  tell  her  you  just  come  in  on  the  train  and 
your  wardrobe-trunk  is  on  the  way  unless  it  got  delayed 
in  changin'  cars  at — oh,  any  old  place.  I  guess  you  did 

82 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

come  in,  at  that,  from  Buffalo  or  Pittsboig  or  some  them 
Western  joints,  didn'  you?" 

Kedzie  just  looked  at  him.  Her  big  eyes  lied  for  her, 
and  he  hastened  to  say: 

"Well,  scuse  me  nosin*  in  on  your  own  business.  Tell 
the  landlady  what  you  want  to,  only  tell  her  it  was  me  sent 
you.  That's  as  good  as  a  guarantee — that  she'll  have  to 
wait  for  her  money." 

Kedzie  laughed  at  his  excruciating  wit,  but  she  was 
touched  also  by  his  courtesy,  and  she  told  him  he  was 
awful  kind  and  she  was  terrible  obliged. 

That  bowled  him  over.  But  when  she  rose  with  stateli- 
ness  and,  reaching  for  her  money,  offered  to  pay,  he  had 
the  presence  of  mind  to  snarl,  amiably: 

"Ah,  ferget  it  and  beat  it.  This  meal's  on  me,  and 
wishing  you  many  happy  returns  of  the  same." 

He  certainly  was  one  grand  gentleman.  The  proprietor 
was  away,  and  Skip  could  afford  to  be  generous. 

Kedzie  left  him  and  found  the  landlady  and  got  a  home ; 
and  then  she  found  the  store  and  got  a  job.  For  a  time 
she  was  in  Eden.  The  doleful  proprietor's  doleful  wife 
was  usually  down-cellar  making  ice-cream  while  her  hus- 
band was  out  in  the  kitchen  cooking  candy.  Kedzie 
was  free  to  guzzle  soda-water  at  her  will.  Her  forefinger 
and  thumb  went  along  the  stacks  of  candy,  dipping  like 
a  robin's  beak.  She  was  forever  licking  her  fingers  and 
brushing  marshmallow  dust  off  her  chest.  She  usually  had 
a  large,  square  caramel  outlined  in  one  round  cheek. 

But  the  ecstasy  did  not  abide.  Kedzie  began  to  realize 
why  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fleissig  were  sad.  Sweets  were  a  sour 
business ;  the  people  who  came  into  the  shop  were  mainly 
children  who  spent  whole  half -hours  choosing  a  cent's 
worth  of  burnt  sugar,  or  young,  foolish  girls  who  giggled 
into  the  soda  bubbles,  or  housewives  ordering  ice-cream  for 
Sunday. 

If  a  young  man  appeared  it  was  always  to  buy  a  box 
of  candy  for  some  other  girl.  It  made  Kedzie  cynical  to 

83 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

see  him  haggle  and  ponder,  trying  to  make  the  maximum 
hit  with  a  minimum  of  ammunition.  It  made  her  more 
distrustful  to  see  young  men  trying  to  flirt  with  her  while 
they  bought  tributes  of  devotion  to  somebody  else.  But 
Kedzie  also  found  out  that  several  of  the  neighborhood  girls 
accepted  candy  from  several  gentlemen  simultaneously, 
and  she  drew  many  cynical  conclusions  from  the  candy 
business. 

Skip  Magruder  was  attentive  and  took  her  out  to  moving 
pictures  when  he  was  free.  In  return  for  the  courtesy  she 
took  her  meals  at  "The  Bon-Ton  Bakery  by  Joe  Gidden." 
Whenever  he  dared,  Skip  skipped  the  change.  He  could 
always  slip  her  an  extra  titbit. 

On  that  account  she  had  to  be  a  little  extra  gracious 
to  him  when  he  took  her  to  the  movies.  Holding  hands 
didn't  hurt. 

Not  a  week  had  gone  before  Skip  had  rivals.  He 
caught  Kedzie  in  deceptions.  She  kept  him  guessing, 
and  the  poor  fool  suffered  the  torments  and  thrills  of 
jealousy.  A  flip  young  fellow  named  Hoke,  agent  for  a 
jobber  in  ice-cream  cones,  and  a  tubby  old  codger  named 
Kalteyer,  who  facetiously  claimed  to  own  a  chewing-gum 
mine,  were  added  competitors  for  Kedzie's  smiles,  while 
Skip  teetered  between  homicide  and  suicide. 

Skip  was  wretched,  and  Kedzie  was  enthralled  by  her 
own  success.  She  had  conquered  New  York.  She  had 
a  job  in  a  candy-store,  a  room  in  a  flat  with  the  family 
of  a  delicatessen  merchant;  she  had  as  many  flirtations 
as  she  could  carry,  and  an  increasing  waiting-list.  What 
more  could  woman  ask? 

And  all  this  was  in  far  upper  Third  Avenue.  She  had 
not  yet  been  down  to  First  Street.  In  fact,  she  was  in 
New  York  two  weeks  before  she  got  as  far  south  as  looth 
Street.  She  had  almost  forgotten  that  she  had  ever  dwelt 
elsewhere  than  in  New  York.  Her  imitative  instinct 
was  already  exchanging  her  Western  burr  for  a  New 
York  purr. 

84 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Her  father  and  mother  would  hardly  have  known  her 
voice  if  they  had  heard  it.  And  they  would  hardly 
meet  her,  since  they  had  given  her  up  and  gone  back  home, 
far  sadder,  no  wiser,  much  poorer.  They  did  not  capture 
the  insurance  money,  and  they  had  no  rewards  to  offer 
for  Kedzie. 

Now  and  then  a  Kedzie  would  be  reported  in  some  part 
of  the  country,  and  a  wild  paragraph  would  be  printed 
about  her.  Now  and  then  she  would  be  found  dead  in  a 
river  or  would  be  traced  as  a  white  slave  drugged  and  sold 
and  shipped  to  the  Philippine  Islands.  The  stories  were 
heinously  cruel  to  her  father  and  mother,  who  mourned 
her  in  Nimrim  and  repented  dismally  of  their  harshness 
to  the  best  and  pirtiest  girl  ever  lived. 

Meanwhile  Kedzie  sold  candy  and  ate  less  and  less  of 
it.  She  began  to  see  more  pretentious  phases  of  city  life 
and  to  be  discontent  with  her  social  triumph.  She  began 
to  understand  how  cheap  her  lovers  were.  She  called 
them  "mutts."  She  came  to  suffer  agonies  of  remorse  at 
the  liberties  she  had  given  them. 

Mr.  Kalteyer,  the  chewing-gum  prince,  in  an  effort  to 
overcome  the  handicap  of  weight  and  age  which  Mr. 
Hoke  did  not  carry,  told  Kedzie  that  her  picture  ought  to 
be  on  every  counter  in  the  world,  and  he  could  get  it  there. 
He'd  love  to  see  her  presented  as  a  classy  dame  showing 
her  ivories  and  proving  how  "beneficiary"  his  chewing- 
gum  was  for  the  teeth  as  well  as  the  digestion. 

Kedzie  told  the  delicatessen  merchant's  wife  all  about 
his  glorious  promises,  and  she  said,  very  sagely: 

"Bevare  vit  dose  bo'quet  fellers.  Better  as  so  many 
roses  is  it  he  should  brink  you  a  slice  roastbif  once. 
Lengwidge  of  flowers  is  nice,  but  money  is  de  svell  talker. 
Take  it  by  me,  money  is  de  svell  talker!" 

Kedzie  was  glad  of  such  wisdom,  and  she  convinced 
Mr.  Kalteyer  that  it  took  more  than  conversation  to 
buy  her  favor.  He  kept  his  word  under  some  duress,  and 
took  Kedzie  to  Mr.  Eben  E.  Kiam,  a  manufacturer  of 

85 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

show-cards  and  lithographs,  with  an  advertising  agency 
besides. 

Mr.  Kiam  studied  her  poses  and  smiles  for  days  before 
he  got  her  at  her  best.  An  interested  observer  and  a 
fertile  suggester  in  his  office  was  a  young  Mr.  Gilfoyle, 
who  wrote  legends  for  show-cards,  catch-lines  for  new 
wares,  and  poems,  if  pressed. 

Gilfoyle  had  the  poet's  prophetic  eye,  and  he  murmured 
to  Mr.  Kiam  that  there  were  millions  in  "Miss  Adair's" 
face  and  form  if  they  were  worked  right.  He  took  pains 
to  let  Kedzie  overhear  this.  It  pleased  her.  Millions 
were  something  she  decided  she  would  like. 

Gilfoyle  developed  wonderfully  in  the  sun  of  Kedzie' s 
interest.  He  told  Kalteyer  that  there  was  no  money  in 
handling  chewing-gum  in  a  small  way  as  a  piker;  what 
he  wanted  was  a  catchy  name,  a  special  selling-argument, 
and  a  national  publicity  campaign.  He  advised  Kalteyer 
to  borrow  a  lot  of  money  at  the  banks  and  sling  himself. 

Kalteyer  breathed  hard.  Gilfoyle  was  assailed  by  an 
epilepsy  of  inspirations.  In  place  of  "Kalteyer's  Peerless 
Gum,"  he  proposed  the  enthralling  title,  "  Breathasweeta." 
Others  had  mixed  pepsin  in  their  edible  rubber  goods  of 
various  flavors.  Gilfoyle  proposed  perfume! 

Kalteyer  was  astounded  at  the  boy's  genius.  He  praised 
him  till  Kedzie  began  to  think  him  worth  cultivation, 
especially  as  he  proposed  to  flood  the  country  with  por- 
traits of  Kedzie  as  the  Breathasweeta  Girl. 

The  muse  of  advertising  swooped  down  and  whispered 
to  Gilfoyle  the  delicious  lines  to  be  printed  under  Kedzie's 
smile. 

Kiss  me  again.    Who  are  you? 

You  use  Breathasweeta.    You  must  be  all  right. 

Kalteyer  was  swept  off  his  feet.  He  ran  to  the  bank 
while  Kiam  raised  Gilfoyle's  salary. 

The  life-size  card  of  Kedzie  was  made  with  a  prop  to 
hold  it  up.  It  was  so  much  retouched  and  altered  in  the 

86 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

printing  that  her  own  father,  seeing  it  in  a  Nimrim  drug- 
store, never  recognized  it.  Nearly  every  drug-store  in 
the  country  set  up  a  Kedzie  in  its  show-window. 

The  Breathasweeta  came  into  such  demand  that 
Kalteyer  was  temporarily  bankrupted  by  prosperity.  He 
had  to  borrow  so  much  money  to  float  his  wares  that  he 
had  none  for  Kedzie's  entertainment. 

Mr.  Kiam  took  her  up  as  a  valuable  model  for  advertis- 
ing purposes. 

He  aroused  in  Kedzie  an  inordinate  appetite  for  pictures 
of  herself.  All  day  long  she  was  posed  in  costumes  for 
various  calendars,  as  a  farmer's  daughter,  as  a  society 
queen,  as  a  camera  girl,  as  a  sausage  nymph,  and  as  the 
patron  saint  of  a  brewery. 

In  a  week  she  had  arrived  at  classic  poses  in  Greek  robes. 
One  by  one  these  were  abbreviated,  till  Kedzie  was 
being  very  generally  revealed  to  the  public  eye. 

The  modesty  her  mother  had  whipped  into  her  was 
gradually  unlearned  step  by  step,  garment  by  garment, 
without  Kedzie's  noticing  the  change  in  her  soul. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

JUST  about  the  hour  of  that  historic  day  when  Kedzie 
was  running  away  from  her  father  and  mother  Prissy 
Atterbury  was  springing  his  great  story  about  Jim  Dyck- 
man  and  Charity. 

Prissy  had  gone  on  to  his  destination,  the  home  of  the 
Winnsboros  in  Greenwich,  but  he  arrived  late,  and  the 
house  guests  were  too  profoundly  absorbed  in  their  games 
of  auction  to  make  a  fit  audience  for  such  a  story.  So 
Prissy  saved  it  for  a  correct  moment,  though  he  nearly 
burst  with  it.  He  slept  ill  that  night  from  indigestion 
due  to  retention  of  gossip. 

The  next  forenoon  he  watched  as  the  week-end  prisoners 
dawdled  down  from  their  gorgeous  cells,  to  a  living-room 
as  big  and  as  full  of  seats  as  a  hotel  lobby.  They  threw 
themselves  on  lounges  and  huge  chairs  and  every  form  of 
encouragement  to  indolence.  They  threw  themselves  also 
on  the  mercy  and  the  ingenuity  of  their  hostess.  But 
Mrs.  Winnsboro  expected  her  guests  to  bring  their  own 
plans  and  take  care  of  themselves.  They  were  marooned. 

When  the  last  malingerer  arrived  with  yawns  still 
unfinished,  Prissy  seized  upon  a  temporary  hush  and  be- 
gan to  laugh.  Pet  Bettany,  who  was  always  sullen  be- 
fore luncheon,  grumbled: 

"What  ails  you,  Priss?  Just  seeing  some  joke  you 
heard  last  night?" 

Priss  snapped,  "I  was  thinking." 

"You  flatter  yourself,"  said  Pet.  "But  I  suppose 
you've  got  to  get  it  off  your  chest.  I'll  be  the  goat. 
What  is  it?" 

88 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Prissy  would  have  liked  to  punish  the  cat  by  not  telling 
her  a  single  word  of  it,  but  he  could  not  withhold  the 
scandal  another  moment. 

"Well,  I'll  tell  you  the  oddest  thing  you  ever  heard  in 
all  your  life." 

Pretending  to  tell  it  to  Pet,  he  was  reaching  out  with 
voice  and  eyes  to  muster  the  rest.  He  longed  for  a  meg- 
aphone and  cursed  such  big  rooms. 

"I  was  passing  through  the  Grand  Central  to  take  my 
train  up  here,  you  understand,  and  who  should  I  see 
walk  in  from  an  incoming  express,  you  understand,  but — 
who,  I  say,  should  I  see  but — oh,  you  never  would  guess — 
you  simply  never  would  guess.  Nev-vir-ir!" 

"Who  cares  who  you  saw,"  said  Pet,  and  viciously 
started  to  change  the  subject,  so  that  Prissy  had  to  jump 
the  prelude. 

"It  was  Jim  Dyckman.  Well,  in  he  comes  from  the 
train,  you  understand,  and  looks  about  among  the  crowd 
of  people  waiting  for  the  train — to  meet  people,  you 
understand." 

Pet  broke  in,  frantically:  "Yes,  I  understand!  But  if 
you  say  'understand'  once  more  I'll  scream  and  chew  up 
the  furniture!" 

Prissy  regarded  her  with  patient  pity  and  went  on: 

"Jim  didn't  see  me,  you  un — you  see — and — but  just 
as  I  was  about  to  say  hello  to  him  he  turns  around  and 
begins  to  stare  into  the  crowd  of  other  people  getting  off 
the  same  train  that  he  got  off,  you  underst —  Well,  I 
had  plenty  of  time  for  my  train,  so  I  waited — not  to  see 
what  was  up,  you  un —  I  do  say  it  a  lot,  don't  I  ?  Well, 
I  waited,  and  who  should  come  along  but — well,  this  you 
never  would  guess — not  in  a  month  of  Sundays." 

A  couple  of  flanneled  oaves  impatient  for  the  tennis- 
court  stole  away,  and  Pet  said: 

"Speed  it  up,  Priss;   they're  walking  out  on  you." 

"Well,  they  won't  walk  out  when  they  know  who  the 
woman  was.  Jim  was  waiting  for — he  was  waiting  for — " 

89 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

He  paused  a  moment.  Nobody  seemed  interested,  and 
so  he  hastened  to  explode  the  name  of  the  woman. 

"Charity  Coe!  It  was  Charity  Coe  Jim  was  waiting 
for!  They  had  come  in  on  the  same  train,  you  under- 
stand, and  yet  they  didn't  come  up  the  platform  to- 
gether. Why?  I  ask  you.  Why  didn't  they  come  up  the 
platform  together?  Why  did  Jim  come  along  first  and 
wait?  Was  it  to  see  if  the  coast  was  clear?  Now,  I 
ask  you!" 

There  was  respect  enough  paid  to  Prissy's  narrative 
now.  In  fact,  the  name  of  Charity  in  such  a  story  made 
the  blood  of  everybody  run  cold — not  unpleasantly — 
yet  not  altogether  pleasantly. 

Some  of  the  guests  scouted  Prissy's  theory.  Mrs. 
Neff  was  there,  and  she  liked  Charity.  She  puffed  con- 
tempt and  cigarette-smoke  at  Atterbury,  and  murmured, 
sweetly,  "Prissy,  you're  a  dirty  little  liar,  and  your  long 
tongue  ought  to  be  cut  out  and  nailed  up  on  a  wall." 

Prissy  nearly  wept  at  the  injustice  of  such  skepticism. 
It  was  Pet  Bettany,  of  all  people,  who  came  to  his  rescue 
with  credulity.  She  was  sincerely  convinced.  A  volup- 
tuary and  intrigante  herself,  she  believed  that  her  own 
ideas  of  happiness  and  her  own  impulses  were  shared  by 
everybody,  and  that  people  who  frowned  on  vice  were 
either  hypocrites  or  cowards. 

She  could  not  imagine  how  small  a  part  and  how  mo- 
mentary a  part  evil  ambitions  play  in  the  lives  of  clean, 
busy  souls  like  Charity.  In  fact,  Pet  flattered  herself  as 
to  her  own  wickedness,  and  pretended  to  be  worse  than 
she  was,  in  order  to  establish  a  reputation  for  candor. 

Vice  has  its  hypocrisies  as  well  as  virtue. 

Pet  had  long  been  impatient  of  the  celebration  of 
Charity  Coe's  saintly  attributes,  and  it  had  irked  her  to 
see  so  desirable  a  catch  as  Jim  Dyckman  squandering  his 
time  on  a  woman  who  was  already  married  and  liked  it. 
He  might  have  been  interested  in  Pet  if  Charity  had  let 
him  alone. 

90 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Pet  also  was  stirred  with  the  detestation  of  sin  in  orderly 
people  that  actuates  disorderly  people.  She  broke  out 
with  surprising  earnestness. 

"Well,  I  thought  as  much!  So  Charity  Coe  is  human, 
after  all,  the  sly  devil!  She's  fooling  even  that  foxy 
husband  of  hers.  She's  playing  the  same  game,  too — 
and  a  sweet  little  foursome  it  makes." 

She  laughed  so  abominably  that  Mrs.  Neff  threw  away 
her  cigarette  and  growled: 

"Oh,  shut  up,  Pet;  you  make  me  sick!  Let's  go  out 
in  the  air." 

Mrs.  Neff  was  old  enough  to  say  such  things,  and  Pet 
dampered  her  noise  a  trifle.  But  she  held  Prissy  back  and 
made  him  recount  his  adventure  again.  They  had  a  good 
laugh  over  it — Prissy  giggling  and  hugging  one  knee,  Pet 
whooping  with  that  peasant  mirth  of  hers. 

The  same  night,  at  just  about  the  hour  when  Kedzie 
Thropp  was  falling  asleep  in  Crotona  Park  and  Jim 
Dyckman  was  sulking  alone  in  his  home  and  Charity 
was  brooding  alone  in  hers,  Prissy  Atterbury  was  de- 
lighted to  see  a  party  of  raiders  from  another  house- 
party  motor  up  to  the  Winnsboros'  and  demand  a  drink. 

Prissy  was  a  trifle  glorious  by  this  time.  He  had  been 
frequenting  a  bowl  of  punch  subtly  liquored,  but  too  much 
sweetened.  He  leaned  heavily  on  a  new-comer  as  he 
began  his  story.  The  new-comer  pushed  Prissy  aside  with 
scant  courtesy. 

"Ah,  tell  us  a  new  one!"  he  said.  "That's  ancient 
history!" 

"What-what-what,"  Prissy  stammered.  "Who  told 
you  s'mush?" 

"Pet  Bet.  telephoned  it  to  us  this  morning.  I  heard 
it  from  three  other  people  to-day." 

"Well,  ain't  that  abslooshly  abdominable." 

Prissy  began  to  cry  softly.  He  knew  the  pangs  of  an 
author  circumvented  by  a  plagiarist. 

The  next  morning  his  head  ached  and  he  rang  up  an 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

eye-opener  or  two.  The  valet  found  him  in  violet  pa- 
jamas, holding  his  jangling  head  and  moaning: 

"There  was  too  much  sugar  in  the  punch." 

He  remembered  Pet's  treachery,  and  he  groaned  that 
there  was  too  much  vinegar  in  life.  But  he  determined 
to  fight  for  his  story,  and  he  did.  Long  after  Pet  had 
turned  her  attention  to  other  reputations,  Prissy  was  still 
peddling  his  yarn. 

The  story  went  circlewise  outward  and  onward  like  the 
influence  of  a  pebble  thrown  into  a  pool.  Two  people  who 
had  heard  the  story  and  doubted  it  met;  one  told  it  to 
the  other;  the  other  said  she  had  heard  it  before;  and 
they  parted  mutually  supported  and  definitely  convinced 
that  the  rumor  was  fact.  Repetition  is  confirmation,  and 
history  is  made  up  of  just  such  self-propelled  lies — fact 
founded  on  fiction. 

We  create  for  ourselves  a  Nero  or  a  Cleopatra,  a  Wash- 
ington or  a  Molly  Pitcher,  from  the  gossip  of  enemies  or 
friends  or  imaginers,  and  we  can  be  sure  of  only  one  thing 
— that  we  do  not  know  the  true  truth. 

But  we  also  do  wrong  to  hold  gossip  in  too  much  dis- 
credit. It  gives  life  fascination,  makes  the  most  stupid 
neighbors  interesting.  It  keeps  up  the  love  of  the  great 
art  of  fiction  and  the  industry  of  character-analysis.  A 
small  wonder  that  human  beings  are  addicted  to  it,  when 
we  are  so  emphatically  assured  that  heaven  itself  is  de- 
voted to  it,  and  that  we  are  under  the  incessant  espionage 
of  our  Deity,  while  the  angels  are  eavesdroppers  and  re- 
porters carrying  note-books  in  which  they  write  with 
indelible  ink  the  least  things  we  do  or  say  or  think. 


CHAPTER   XV 

TO  see  into  other  people's  hearts  and  homes  and  lives 
is  one  of  the  primeval  instincts.  In  that  curiosity  all 
the  sciences  are  rooted;  and  it  is  a  scientific  impulse  that 
makes  us  hanker  to  get  back  of  faces  into  brains,  to  push 
through  words  into  thoughts,  and  to  ferret  out  of  silences 
the  emotions  they  smother. 

Gossip  is  one  of  the  great  vibrations  of  the  universe. 
Like  rain,  it  falls  on  the  just  and  on  the  unjust;  it 
ruins  and  it  revives ;  it  quenches  thirst ;  it  makes  the  1 
desert  bloom  with  cactuses  and  grotesque  flowers,  and 
it  beats  down  violets  and  drowns  little  birds  in  their 
nests. 

Gossip  was  now  awakening  a  new  and  fearful  interest  in 
Charity  Coe  and  Jim  Dyckman. 

Two  women  sitting  at  a  hair-dresser's  were  discussing 
the  gossip  according  to  Prissy  through  the  shower  of  their 
tresses.  The  manicure  working  on  the  nails  of  one  of  them 
glanced  up  at  the  coiffeur  and  gasped  with  her  eyes. 
The  manicure  whispered  it  to  her  next  customer — who 
told  it  to  her  husband  in  the  presence  of  their  baby.  The 
baby  was  not  interested,  but  the  nurse  was,  and  when  she 
rode  out  with  the  baby  she  told  the  chauffeur.  The 
chauffeur  used  the  story  as  a  weapon  of  scorn  to  tease  Jim 
Dyckman's  new  valet  with.  Jules  would  have  gone  into 
a  frenzy  of  denial,  but  Jules  was  by  now  wearing  the  livery 
of  his  country  in  the  trenches.  The  new  valet — Dallam 
was  his  name — tried  to  sell  the  story  to  a  scavenger- 
editor  who  did  not  dare  print  it  yet,  though  he  put  it  in 
the  safe  where  he  kept  such  material  against  the  day  of 

93 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

need.  Also  he  paid  Dallam  a  retainer  to  keep  him  in 
touch  with  the  comings  and  goings  of  Dyckman. 

And  thus  the  good  name  of  a  good  woman  went  through 
the  mud  like  a  white  flounce  torn  and  dragged  and  un- 
noticed. For  of  course  Charity  never  dreamed  that  any 
one  was  giving  such  importance  to  the  coincidence  of  her 
railroad  journey  with  Jim  Dyckman. 

No  more  did  Dyckman.  He  knew  all  too  well  what 
gulfs  had  parted  him  from  Charity  even  while  he  sat  with 
her  in  the  train.  He  had  suffered  such  rebuffs  from  her 
that  he  was  bitterly  aggrieved.  He  was  telling  himself 
that  he  hated  Charity  for  her  stinginess  of  soul  at  the 
very  time  that  the  whispers  were  damning  her  too  great 
generosity  in  his  favor. 

While  gossip  was  recruiting  its  silent  armies  against 
her  for  her  treason  to  her  husband,  Charity  was  wondering 
why  her  loyalty  to  him  was  so  ill  paid.  She  did  not 
suspect  Cheever  of  treason  to  her.  That  was  so  odious 
that  she  simply  could  not  give  it  thought  room. 

She  stumbled  on  a  newspaper  article,  the  same  perennial 
essay  in  recurrence,  to  the  effect  that  many  wives  lose 
their  husbands  by  neglect  of  their  own  charms.  It  was 
full  of  advice  as  to  the  tricks  by  which  a  woman  may  lure 
her  spouse  back  to  the  hearth  and  fasten  him  there,  com- 
bining domestic  vaudeville  with  an  interest  in  his  business, 
but  relying  above  all  on  keeping  Cupid's  torch  alight  by 
being  Delilah  every  day. 

Charity  Coe  was  startled.  She  wondered  if  she  were 
losing  Cheever  by  neglecting  herself.  She  began  to  pay 
more  heed  to  her  dress  and  her  hats,  her  hair,  her  com- 
plexion, her  smile,  her  general  attractiveness. 

Cheever  noticed  the  strange  alteration,  and  it  bewildered 
him.  He  could  not  imagine  why  his  wife  was  flirting  with 
him.  She  made  it  harder  for  him  to  get  away  to  Zada, 
but  far  more  eager  to.  He  did  not  like  Charity  at  all, 
in  that  impersonation.  Neither  did  Charity.  She  hated 
herself  after  a  day  or  two  of  wooing  her  official  wooer. 

94 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"You  ought  to  be  arrested,"  she  told  her  mirror-self. 

There  were  plays  and  novels  that  counseled  a  neglected 
wife  to  show  an  interest  in  another  man.  Charity  was 
tempted  to  use  Jim  Dyckman  as  a  decoy  for  her  own  wild 
duck;  but  Dyckman  had  sailed  away  in  his  new  yacht, 
on  a  cruise  with  his  yacht  club. 

The  gossip  did  not  die  in  his  absence.  It  oozed  along 
like  a  dark  stream  of  fly-gathering  molasses.  Eventually 
it  came  to  the  notice  of  a  woman  who  was  Zada's  dearest 
friend  and  hated  her  devotedly. 

She  told  it  to  Zada  as  a  taunt,  to  show  her  that  Zada's 
Mr.  Cheever  was  as  much  deceived  as  deceiving.  Zada, 
of  course,  was  horribly  delighted.  She  promptly  told 
Cheever  that  his  precious  wife  had  been  having  a  lovely 
affair  with  Jim  Dyckman.  Cheever  showed  her  where  she 
stood  by  forbidding  her  to  mention  his  wife's  name.  He 
told  Zada  that,  whatever  his  wife  might  be,  she  was  good 
as  gold. 

He  left  Zada  with  great  dignity  and  made  up  his  mind 
to  kill  Jim  Dyckman.  In  his  fury  he  was  convinced  of 
the  high  and  holy  and  cleanly  necessity  of  murder.  All 
of  our  basest  deeds  are  always  done  with  the  noblest  mo- 
tives. Cheever  forgot  his  own  wickednesses  in  his  mis- 
sion to  punish  Dyckman.  The  assassination  of  Dyck- 
man, he  was  utterly  certain,  would  have  been  what 
Browning  called  "a  spittle  wiped  from  the  beard  of  God." 

But  he  was  not  permitted  to  carry  out  his  mission,  for 
he  learned  that  Dyckman  was  somewhere  on  the  Atlantic, 
far  beyond  Cheever's  reach. 

Disappointed  bitterly  at  having  to  let  him  live  awhile, 
Cheever  went  to  his  home,  to  denounce  his  wife.  He 
found  .her  reading.  She  was  overjoyed  to  see  him.  He 
stared  at  her,  trying  to  realize  her  inconceivable  depravity. 

"Hello,  honey!"  she  cried.  "What's  wrong?  You've 
got  a  fever,  I'm  sure.  I'm  going  to  take  your  tempera- 
ture." 

From  her  hospital  experience  she  carried  a  little  ther- 

95 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

mometer  in  her  hand-bag.     She  had  it  by  her  and  rose  to 
put  it  under  his  tongue. 

He  struck  it  from  her,  and  she  stared  at  him.  He 
stood  quivering  like  an  overdriven  horse.  He  called  her 
a  name  highly  proper  in  a  kennel  club,  but  inappropriate 
to  the  boudoir. 

"You  thought  you'd  get  away  with  it,  didn't  you? 
You  thought  you'd  get  away  with  it,  didn't  you?"  he 
panted. 

"Get  away  with  what,  honey?"  she  said,  thinking  him 
delirious.  She  had  seen  a  hundred  men  shrieking  in  wild 
frenzies  from  brains  too  hot. 

"You  and  Dyckman!  humph!"  he  raged.  "So  you 
and  Jim  Dyckman  sneaked  off  to  the  mountains  to- 
gether, did  you?  And  came  back  on  the  same  train,  eh? 
And  thought  I'd  never  find  it  out.  Why,  you — " 

What  he  would  have  said  she  did  not  wait  to  hear. 
She  was  human,  after  all,  and  had  thousands  of  plebeian 
and  primitive  ancestors  and  ancestresses.  They  jumped 
into  her  muscles  with  instant  instinct.  She  slapped  his 
face  so  hard  that  it  rocked  out  of  her  view. 

She  stood  and  fumbled  at  her  tingling  palm,  aghast  at 
herself  and  at  the  lightning-stroke  from  unknown  dis- 
tances that  shattered  her  whole  being.  Then  she  began 
to  sob. 

Peter  Cheever's  aching  jaw  dropped,  and  he  gazed  at 
her  befuddled.  His  illogical  belief  in  her  guilt  was 
illogically  converted  to  a  profound  conviction  of  her  in- 
nocence. The  wanton  whom  he  had  accused  was  meta- 
morphosed into  a  slandered  angel  who  would  not,  could 
not  sin.  In  his  eyes  she  was  hopelessly  pure. 

"Thank  God!"  he  moaned.  "Oh,  thank  God  for  one 
clean  woman  in  this  dirty  world!" 

He  caught  her  bruised  hand  and  began  to  kiss  it  and 
pour  tears  on  it.  And  she  looked  down  at  his  beautiful 
bent  head  and  laid  her  other  hand  on  it  in  benison. 

It  is  one  way  of  reconciling  families. 

96 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Cheever  was  so  filled  with  remorse  that  he  was  tempted 
to  write  Jim  Dyckman  a  note  of  apology.  That  was  one 
of  the  few  temptations  he  ever  resisted. 

Now  he  was  going  to  kill  everybody  who  had  been 
dastard  enough  to  believe  and  spread  the  scandal  he  had 
so  easily  believed  himself.  But  he  would  have  had  to 
begin  with  Zada.  He  was  afraid  of  Zada.  He  enjoyed 
a  few  days  of  honeymoon  with  Charity. 

He  dodged  Zada  on  the  telephone,  and  he  gave  Mr. 
Hudspeth  instructions  to  say  that  he  was  always  out  in 
case  of  a  call  from  "Miss  You  Know."  "I  know,"  Mr. 
Hudspeth  answered. 

One  morning,  at  an  incredibly  early  hour  for  Zada,,  she 
walked  into  his  office  and  asked  Mr.  Hudspeth  to  retire — 
also  the  suspiciously  good-looking  stenographer.  Then 
Zada  said: 

"Peterkin,  it's  time  you  came  home." 

His  laugh  was  hard  and  sharp.  She  took  out  a  little 
weapon.  She  had  managed  to  evade  the  Sullivan  law 
against  the  purchase  or  possession  of  weapons.  Peter 
was  nauseated.  Zada  was  calm. 

"Peterkin,"  she  said,  "did  you  read  yesterday  about 
that  woman  who  shot  a  man  and  then  herself?" 

Peter  had  read  it  several  times  recently — the  same 
story  with  different  names.  It  had  long  been  a  fashionable 
thing:  the  disprized  lover  murders  the  disprizing  lover 
and  then  executes  the  murderer.  It  was  expensive  to  rugs 
and  cheated  lawyers  and  jurors  out  of  fees,  but  saved  the 
State  no  end  of  money. 

Cheever  surrendered. 

"I'll  come  home,"  he  said,  gulping  the  last  quinine 
word.  It  seemed  to  him  the  most  loyal  thing  he  could 
do  at  the  moment.  It  would  have  been  unpardonably 
unkind  to  Charity  to  let  himself  be  spattered  all  over  his 
office  and  the  newspapers  by  a  well-known  like  Zada. 

Once  "home"  with  Zada,  he  took  the  pistol  away  from 
her.  But  she  laughed  and  said: 

7  97 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"I  can  always  buy  another  one,  deary." 

Thus  Zada  re-established  her  rights.  Cheever  was  very 
sorry.  He  cursed  himself  for  being  so  easily  led  astray. 
He  wondered  why  it  was  his  lot  to  be  so  fickle  and  in- 
capable of  loyalty.  He  did  not  know.  He  could  only 
accept  himself  as  he  was.  Oneself  is  the  most  wonderful, 
inexplicable  thing  in  the  world. 

So  Charity's  brief  honeymoon  waned,  blinked  out 
again. 

Jim  Dyckman  came  home  from  the  yacht  cruise  in 
blissless  ignorance  of  all  this  frustrated  drama.  He  longed 
to  see  Charity,  but  dared  not.  He  took  sudden  hope  from 
remembering  her  determination  to  go  back  abroad  to  her 
nursery  of  wounded  soldiers. 

He  had  an  inspiration.  He  would  go  abroad  also — as 
a  member  of  the  aviation  corps.  He  already  owned  a 
fairly  good  hydro-aeroplane  which  had  not  killed  him  yet 
— he  was  a  good  swimmer,  and  lucky 

He  ordered  the  best  war-eagle  that  could  be  made, 
and  began  to  take  lessons  in  military  maps,  bird's-eye 
views,  and  explosives.  He  was  almost  happy.  He  would 
improve  on  the  poet's  dream-ideal,  "Were  I  a  little  bird, 
I'd  fly  to  thee." 

He  would  be  a  big  bird,  and  he'd  fly  with  his  Thee. 
He  would  call  on  Charity  in  France  when  they  both  had 
an  evening  off,  and  take  her  up  into  the  clouds  for  a  sky- 
ride. 

He  had  an  ambition.  At  worst,  he  could  die  for  France. 
It  is  splendid  to  have  something  to  die  for.  It  makes  life 
worth  living. 

He  was  so  ecstatic  in  his  first  flight  with  his  finished 
machine  that  he  fell  and  broke  one  of  its  wings,  also  one 
of  his  own.  Charity  heard  of  his  accident  and  called  on 
him  at  his  mother's  house.  He  told  her  his  plans. 

"Too  bad!"  she  sighed.  "I'm  not  going  abroad.  Be- 
sides, I  couldn't  see  you  if  I  did." 

Then  she  told  him  what  Cheever  had  eaid,  but  not  how 

98 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

she  had  slapped.  Jim  was  wild.  He  rose  on  his  bad 
arm  and  fell  back  again,  groaning: 

"I'll  kill  him  for  that." 

Everybody  is  always  going  to  kill  everybody.  Some- 
times somebody  does  kill  somebody.  But  Dyckman  went 
over  to  the  great  majority.  Charity  begged  him  not  to 
kill  her  husband,  and  to  please  her  he  promised  not  to. 

Charity,  having  insured  her  husband's  life,  said:  "And 
now,  Jimmie  old  boy,  I  mustn't  see  you  any  more.  Gos- 
sip has  linked  our  names.  We  must  unlink  them.  My 
husband  and  you  will  butcher  each  other  if  I'm  not  care- 
ful, so  it's  good-by  for  keeps,  and  God  bless  vou,  isn't  it? 
Promise?" 

"I'll  promise  anything,  if  you'll  go  on  away  and  let  me 
alone,"  Jim  groaned,  his  broken  arm  being  quite  sufficient 
trouble  for  him  at  the  moment. 

Charity  laughed  and  went  on  away.  She  was  deeply 
comforted  by  a  promise  which  she  knew  he  would  not 
keep. 

Dyckman  himself,  as  soon  as  his  broken  bones  ceased 
to  shake  his  soul,  groaned  with  loneliness  and  despaired  of 
living  without  Charity — vowed  in  his  sick  misery  that 
nobody  could  ever  come  between  them.  He  could  not, 
would  not,  live  without  her. 

Still  the  gossip  oozed  along  that  he  had  not  lived  with- 
out her. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

had  come  to  town  with  no  social  ambitions 
whatsoever  beyond  a  childish  desire  to  be  enormously 
rich  and  marry  a  beautiful  prince.  Her  ideal  of  heaven 
at  first  was  an  eternal  movie  show  interrupted  at  will  by 
several  meals  a  day,  incessant  soda-water  and  ice-cream 
and  a  fellow  or  two  to  spoon  with,  and  some  up-to-date 
duds — most  of  all,  several  pairs  of  those  white-topped 
shoes  all  the  girls  in  town  were  wearing. 

The   time   would   shortly   come  when   Kedzie   would 
abhor  the  word  swell  and  despise  the  people  who  used  it, 
violently  forgetting  that  she  had  herself  used  it.     She 
would  soon  be  overheard  saying  to  a  mixed  girl  of  her 
mixed  acquaintance:   "Take  it  from  me,  chick,  when  you 
find  a  dame  calls  herself  a  lady,  she  ain't.     Nobody  who  ( 
is  it  says  it,  and  if  you  want  to  be  right,  lay  off  such  words  I 
as  swell  and  classy.'1 

Later,  she  would  be  finding  that  it  took  something  still 
more  than  avoiding  the  word  lady  to  deserve  it.  She 
would  writhe  to  believe  that  she  could  never  quite  make 
herself  exact  with  the  term.  She  would  hate  those  who 
had  been  born  and  made  to  the  title,  and  she  would 
revert  at  times  to  common  instincts  with  fierce  anarchy. 

But  one  must  go  forward  before  one  can  backslide,  and 
Kedzie  was  on  the  way  up  the  slippery  hill. 

She  had  greatly  improved  the  quality  of  her  lodgings, 
her  suitors,  and  her  clothes.  Her  photographic  successes 
in  risky  exposures  had  brought  her  a  marked  increase  of 
wages.  She  wore  as  many  clothes  as  she  could  in  private, 
to  make  up  for  her  self-denial  before  the  camera.  Her 

100 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

taste  in  dress  was  soubrettish  and  flagrant,  but  it  was  not 
small-town.  She  was  beginning  to  dislike  ice-cream  soda 
and  candy  and  to  call  for  beer  and  Welsh  rabbit.  She 
would  soon  be  liking  salads  with  garlic  and  Roquefort 
cheese  in  the  dressing.  She  was  mounting  with  splendid 
assiduity  toward  the  cigarette  and  the  high-ball.  There 
was  no  stopping  Kedzie.  She  kept  rising  on  stepping- 
stones  of  her  dead  selves. 

Landladies  are  ladder-rungs  of  progress,  too;  Kedzie's 
history  might  have  been  traced  by  hers. 

Her  camera  career  had  led  her  from  the  flat  of  the 
delicatessen  merchant,  through  various  shabby  lairs,  into 
the  pension  of  a  vaudeville  favorite  of  prehistoric  fame. 
The  house  was  dilapidated,  and  the  brownstone  front  had 
the  moth-eaten  look  of  the  plush  furniture  within. 

Mrs.  Jambers  was  as  fat  as  if  she  fed  on  her  own  board- 
ers, but  she  was  once  no  less  a  person  than  Mrs.  Trixie 
Jambers  Coogan,  of  Coogan  and  Jambers.  She  had  once 
evoked  wild  applause  at  Tony  Pastor's  by  her  clog-dancing. 

There  was  another  dancer  there,  an  old  grenadier  of  a 
woman  who  had  been  famous  in  her  time  as  a  premiere 
danseuse  at  the  opera.  Mrs.  Bottger  had  spent  a  large 
part  of  her  early  life  on  one  toe,  but  now  she  could  hardly 
balance  herself  sitting  down.  She  held  on  to  the  table 
while  she  ate.  She  did  not  look  as  if  she  needed  to  eat 
any  more. 

Kedzie  was  proud  to  know  people  who  had  been  as 
famous  as  these  two  said  they  had  been,  but  Bottgei  and 
Jambers  used  to  fight  bitterly  over  their  respective  schools 
of  expression.  Bottger  insisted  that  the  buck-and-wing 
and  the  double  shuffle  and  other  forms  of  jiggery  were  low. 
Jambers  insisted  that  the  ballet  was  immoral  and,  what 
was  more,  insincere.  Mrs.  Bottger  was  furious  at  the 
latter  charge,  but  the  former  was  now  rather  flattering. 
She  used  secretly  to  take  out  old  photographs  of  herself 
as  a  slim  young  thing  in  tights  with  one  toe  for  support 
and  the  other  resting  on  one  knee.  She  would  gloat  over 

101 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

these  as  a  miser  over  his  gold;  and  she  would  shake  her 
finger  at  her  quondam  self  and  scold  it  lovingly — "You 
wicked  little  thing,  you!"  Then  she  would  hastily  move 
it  out  of  the  reach  of  her  tears.  It  was  safe  under  the 
eaves  of  her  bosom  against  her  heart. 

It  was  a  merry  war,  with  dishonors  even,  till  a  new- 
comer appeared,  a  Miss  Eleanor  Silsby,  who  taught  the 
ultimate  word  in  dancing;  she  admitted  it  herself.  As 
she  explained  it,  she  went  back  to  nature  for  her  inspira- 
tion. Her  pupils  dressed  as  near  to  what  nature  had  pro- 
vided them  with  as  they  really  dared.  Miss  Silsby  said 
that  they  were  trying  to  catch  the  spirit  of  wind  and  waves 
and  trees  and  flowers,  and  translate  it  into  the  dance. 
They  translated  seaweed  and  whitecaps  and  clouds  into 
steps.  Miss  Silsby  was  booking  a  few  vaudeville  dates 
"  in  order  to  bring  the  art  of  nature  back  to  the  people  and 
bring  the  people  back  to  the  art  of  nature."  What  the 
people  would  do  with  it  she  did  not  explain — nor  what  the 
police  would  do  to  them  if  they  tried  it. 

Miss  Silsby  had  by  the  use  of  the  most  high-sounding 
phrases  attained  about  the  final  word  in  candor.  What 
clothes  her  pupils  wore  were  transparent  and  flighty. 
The  only  way  to  reveal  more  skin  would  have  been  to 
grow  it.  Her  pupils  were  much  photographed  in  airy  at- 
titudes on  beaches,  dancing  with  the  high  knee-action  so 
much  prized  in  horses;  flinging  themselves  into  the  air; 
curveting,  with  the  accent  on  the  curve;  clasping  one 
another  in  groups  of  nymphish  innocence  and  artificial 
grace.  It  was  all,  somehow,  so  shocking  for  its  insincerity 
that  its  next  to  nudity  was  a  minor  consideration.  It  was 
so  full  of  affectation  that  it  seemed  quite  lacking  in  the 
dangers  of  passion. 

So  gradually  indeed  had  the  mania  for  disrobing  spread 
about  the  world  that  there  was  little  or  no  shock  to  be  had. 
People  generally  assumed  to  be  respectable  took  their 
children  to  see  the  dances,  even  permitted  them  to  learn 
them.  According  to  Miss  Silsby's  press-notices,  "Mem- 

102 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

bers  of  wealthy  and  prominent  families  are  taking  up 
the  new  art."  And  perhaps  they  were  doing  as  well  by 
their  children  as  more  careful  parents,  since  nothing  is 
decent  or  indecent  except  by  acclamation,  and  if  nudity 
is  made  commonplace,  there  is  one  multitude  of  temp- 
tations removed  from  our  curiosity. 

But  Bottger,  whose  ballet-tights  and  tulle  skirt  were 
once  the  horror  of  all  good  people — Bottger  was  disgusted 
with  the  dances  of 'Miss  Silsby,  and  said  so. 

Miss  Silsby  was  merely  amused  by  Bottger's  hostility. 
She  scorned  her  scorn,  and  with  the  utmost  scientific  and 
ethnological  support  declared  that  clothes  were  immoral 
in  origin,  and  the  cause  of  immorality  and  extravagance, 
since  they  were  not  the  human  integument.  Jambers 
was  not  quite  sure  what  "integument"  was,  but  she 
thanked  God  she  had  never  had  it  in  her  family. 

An  interested  onlooker  and  in-listener  at  these  boarding- 
house  battles  was  Kedzie.  By  now  she  was  weary  of  her 
present  occupation — of  course!  She  was  tired  of  pho- 
tographs of  herself,  especially  as  they  were  secured  at  the 
cost  of  long  hours  of  posing  under  the  hot  skylight  of  a 
photograph  gallery.  Miss  Silsby  gave  Kedzie  a  pair  of 
complimentary  seats  to  an  entertainment  at  which  the 
Silsby  sirens  were  to  dance.  Kedzie  was  swept  away  with 
envy  of  the  hilarity,  the  grace,  the  wild  animal  efferves- 
cence and  elegance  of  motion. 

She  contrasted  the  vivacity  of  the  dancer's  existence 
with  the  stupidity  of  her  still-life  poses.  She  longed  to  run 
and  pirouette  and  leap  into  the  air.  She  wished  she  could 
kick  herself  in  the  back  of  the  head  to  music  the  way  the 
Silsby  girls  did. 

When  she  told  this  to  Miss  Silsby  the  next  day  Miss 
Silsby  was  politely  indifferent.  Kedzie  added: 

"You  know,  I'm  up  on  that  classic  stuff,  too.  Oh, 
yessum,  Greek  costumes  are  just  everyday  duds  to  me." 

"Indeed!"  Miss  Silsby  exclaimed. 

Kedzie  showed  her  some  trade  photographs  of  herself  as 

103 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

an  Athenienne,  and  Miss  Silsby  pondered.  Although  her 
dances  were  supposed  to  purify  and  sweeten  the  soul, 
one  of  her  darlings  had  so  fiendish  a  temper  that  she  had 
torn  out  several  Psyche  knots.  She  was  the  demurest  of 
all  in  seeming  when  she  danced,  but  she  was  uncontrollably 
jealous. 

Miss  Silsby  saw  that  Kedzie's  pout  had  commercial 
value.  She  invited  Kedzie  to  join  her  troupe.  And  Ked- 
zie  did.  The  wages  were  small,  but  the  world  was  new. 
She  became  one  of  the  most  attractive  of  the  dancers. 
But  once  more  the  rehearsals  and  the  long  hours  of  idle- 
ness wore  out  her  enthusiasm.  She  hated  the  regularity 
of  the  performances;  every  afternoon  and  evening  she 
must  express  raptures  she  did  not  feel,  by  means  of  la- 
borious jumpings  and  runnings  to  the  same  music.  And 
she  abominated  the  requirement  to  keep  kicking  herself 
in  the  back  of  the  head. 

Even  the  thrill  of  clotheslessness  became  stupid.  It 
was  disgusting  not  to  have  beautiful  gowns  to  dance  in. 
Zada  L'Etoile  and  others  had  a  new  costume  for  every 
dance.  Kedzie  had  one  tiresome  hip-length  shift  and 
little  else.  As  usual,  poor  Kedzie  found  that  realization 
was  for  her  the  parody  of  anticipation. 

Kedzie's  new  art  danced  into  her  life  a  few  new  suitors, 
but  they  came  at  a  time  when  she  was  almost  imbecile 
over  Thomas  Gilfoyle,  the  advertising  bard.  He  was  the 
first  intellectual  man  she  had  met — that  is,  he  was  in- 
tellectual compared  with  any  other  of  her  men  friends. 
He  could  read  and  write  something  besides  business 
literature.  In  fact,  he  was  a  fellow  of  startling  ideas. 
He  called  himself  a  socialist.  What  the  socialists  would 
have  called  him  it  would  be  hard  to  say;  they  are  given 
to  strong  language. 

Kedzie  had  known  in  Nimrim  what  church  socials  were, 
for  they  were  about  the  height  of  Nimrim  excitement. 
But  young  Mr.  Gilfoyle  was  not  a  church  socialist. 
He  detested  all  creeds  and  all  churches  and  said  things 

104 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

about  them  and  about  religion  that  at  first  made  Kedzie 
look  up  at  the  ceiling  and  dodge.  But  no  brimstone 
ever  broke  through  the  plaster  and  she  grew  used  to  his 
diatribes. 

She  had  never  met  one  of  these  familiar  enough  figures 
before,  and  she  was  vaguely  stirred  by  his  chantings  in 
behalf  of  humanity.  He  adored  the  poor  laborers,  though 
he  did  not  treat  the  office-boy  well  and  he  was  not  gallant 
to  the  scrub-woman.  But  his  theories  were  as  beautiful 
as  music,  and  he  intoned  them  with  ringing  oratory. 
Kedzie  did  not  know  what  he  was  talking  about,  any  more 
than  she  knew  what  Caruso  was  singing  about  when  she 
turned  him  on  in  Mrs.  Jambers's  phonograph,  but  his 
melodies  put  her  heart  to  its  paces,  and  so  did  Gilfoyle's. 

Gilfoyle  wrote  her  poems,  too,  real  poems  not  meant  for 
publication  at  advertising  rates.  Kedzie  had  never  had 
anybody  commit  poetry  at  her  before.  It  lifted  her  like 
that  Biltmore  elevator  and  sent  her  heart  up  into  her 
head.  He  lauded  Kedzie's  pout  as  well  as  her  more  saltant 
expressions.  He  voiced  a  belief  that  life  in  a  little  hut 
with  her  would  be  luxury  beyond  the  contemptible  stu- 
pidities of  life  in  a  palace  with  another.  Kedzie  did  not 
care  for  the  hut  detail,  but  the  idolatry  of  so  "brainy"  a 
man  was  inspiring. 

Kedzie  and  Gilfoyle  were  mutually  afraid:  she  of  his 
intellect,  he  of  her  beauty  and  of  her  very  fragility.  Of 
course,  he  called  her  by  her  new  name,  "Miss  Adair." 
Later  he  implored  the  priceless  joy  of  calling  her  by  her 
first  name. 

Gilfoyle  feared  to  ask  this  privilege  in  prose,  and  so  he 
put  it  in  verse.  Kedzie  found  it  in  her  mail  at  the  stage 
door.  She  huddled  in  a  corner  of  the  big  undressing- 
room  where  the  nymphs  prepared  for  their  task.  The 
young  rowdies  kept  peeking  over  her  shoulder  and  snatch- 
ing at  her  letter,  but  when  finally  she  read  it  aloud  to 
them  as  a  punishment  and  a  triumph,  they  were  stricken 
with  awe.  It  ran  thus: 

105 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Pretty  maid,  pretty  maid,  may  I  call  you  "Anita"? 
Your  last  name  is  sweet,  but  your  first  name  is  sweeter. 

Kedzie  stumbled  over  this,  because  she  had  not  yet 
eradicated  the  Western  final  "r"  from  her  pronunciation. 
She  thought  Mr.  Gilfoyle  was  awful  swell  because  he 
dropped  it  naturally.  But  she  read  on,  scrambling  over 
some  of  the  words  the  way  a  horse  jumps  a  fence  one 
rail  too  high. 

You  are  so  adorable 
I  find  it  deplorable, 

Absurd  and  abnormal. 

To  cling  to  the  formal 
'Twere  such  a  good  omen 
To  drop  the  cognomen. 

So  I  beg  you  to  promise 

That  you'll  call  me  "Thomas," 
Or  better  yet,  "Tommie," 
Instead  of  th'  abomi- 

Nable  "Mr.  Gilfoyle." 

You  can,  and  you  will  foil 
My  torments  Mephistian 
By  using  my  Christian 

Name  and  permitting  Yours  Truly 

To  call  you  yours  too-ly. 

Miss  Adair, 
Hear  my  prayer 
Do  I  dare 

Call  my  love  when  I  meet  her 

"Anita"?   Anita!    Anita!! 

In  the  silence  that  followed  she  whisked  out  a  box 
of  shrimp-pink  letter-paper  she  had  bought  at  a  drug- 
store. It  was  daintily  ruled  in  violet  lines  and  had  a 
mauve  "A"  at  the  top.  It  was  called  "The  Nobby 
Note,"  and  so  she  knew  that  it  was  all  right. 

She  wrote  on  it  the  simple  but  thrilling  answer: 

DEAR  TOMMIE,— You  bet  your  boots! 

ANITA. 
1 06 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

By  the  time  she  had  sealed  and  addressed  the  shrimpy 
envelope  and  begun  feverishly  to  make  up  for  lost  time 
in  changing  her  costume,  the  other  girls  had  recovered 
a  little  from  the  suffocation  of  her  glory.  One  of  them 
murmured : 

"Say,  Aneet,  what  is  your  first  name?  Your  really 
truly  one." 

Another  snarled,  "What's  your  really  truly  last  name?" 

A  third  dryad  whooped,  "I  bet  it's  Lizzie  Smoots 
or  Mag  Wimpfhauser." 

The  others  had  other  suggestions  to  howl,  and  Anita 
cowered  in  silence,  wondering  if  one  of  the  fiends  would 
not  at  any  moment  guess  "Kedzie  Thropp." 

The  call  to  arms  and  legs  cut  short  her  torment,  and 
for  once  the  music  seemed  appropriate.  Never  had  she 
danced  with  such  lyricism. 

Gilfbyle  had  the  presence  of  mind  to  be  waiting  in  the 
alley  after  the  matinee,  and  took  from  her  hand  the  note 
she  was  carrying  to  the  mail-box.  When  he  read  it  he 
almost  embraced  her  right  there. 

They  took  a  street-car  to  Mrs.  Jambers's  boarding- 
house,  but  cruel  disappointment  waited  for  them.  An- 
other boarder  was  entertaining  her  gentleman  friend  in  the 
parlor.  Kedzie  was  furious.  So  was  the  other  boarder. 

That  night  Gilfoyle  met  Kedzie  again  at  the  stage  door, 
but  they  could  not  go  to  the  boarding-house,  for  Mrs. 
Jambers  occupied  at  that  time  a  kind  of  false  mantel- 
piece that  turned  out  to  be  a  bed  in  disguise.  So  they 
went  to  the  Park. 

Young  Gilfoyle  treated  Kedzie  with  almost  more  respect 
than  she  might  have  desired.  He  was  one  of  those  self' 
chaperoning  young  men  who  spout  anarchy  and  practise 
asceticism.  Even  in  his  poetry  it  was  the  necessitous 
limitations  of  rhyme-words  that  dragged  him  into  his 
boldest  thoughts. 

Sitting  on  a  dark  Park  bench  with  Kedzie,  he  could 
not  have  been  more  circumspect  if  there  had  been  sixteen 

107 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

duennas  gathered  around.  The  first  time  he  hugged  her 
was  a  rainy  night  when  Kedzie  had  to  snuggle  close  and 
haul  his  arm  around  her,  and  then  his  heart  beat  so  rast 
against  her  shoulder  that  she  was  afraid  he  would  die  of  it. 

Cool,  wet,  windy  nights  in  late  summer  feel  very  cold, 
and  a  damp  bench  under  dripping  trees  was  a  nuisance  to 
a  tired  dancing-girl.  Love  was  so  inconvenient  that 
when  Kedzie  bewailed  the  restrictions  imposed  on  un- 
married people  Gilfoyle  proposed  marriage.  It  popped 
out  of  him  so  suddenly  that  Kedzie  felt  his  heart  stop  and 
listen.  Then  it  began  to  race,  and  hers  ran  away,  too. 

"Why,  Mr.  Gilfoyle!  Why,  Tommie!"  she  gurgled. 
It  was  her  first  proposal  of  marriage,  and  she  lost  her  head. 
"And  you  a  socialist  and  telling  me  you  didn't  believe 
in  marriages!" 

"I  don't,"  said  Gilfoyle,  with  lovely  sublimity  above 
petty  consistencies,  "except  with  you,  Anita.  I  don't 
believe  in  anything  exclusive  for  anybody  except  you  for 
me  and  me  for  you.  We've  just  got  to  be  each  other's 
own,  haven't  we?" 

Kedzie  could  think  of  nothing  to  add  except  a  little 
emphasis;  so  she  cried,  "Each  other's  very  ownest  own!" 

Thus  they  became  engaged.  That  made  it  possible  for 
her  to  have  him  in  her  own  room  at  the  boarding-house. 
Also  it  enabled  him  to  borrow  money  from  her  with 
propriety  when  they  were  hungry  for  supper.  Fortu- 
nately, he  did  not  mind  her  going  on  working.  Not  at 
all. 

Gilfoyle  was  a  fiend  of  jealousy  concerning  individuals, 
but  he  was  not  jealous  of  the  public.  It  did  not  hurt  him 
at  all  to  have  Kedzie  publishing  her  structural  design  to 
the  public,  because  he  loved  the  public,  and  the  public 
paid  indirectly.  He  wanted  the  masses  to  have  what  the 
classes  have.  That  delighted  Kedzie,  at  first. 

What  she  thought  she  understood  of  his  socialistic 
scheme  was  that  every  poor  girl  like  herself  was  going  to 
have  her  limousine  and  her  maid  and  a  couple  of  footmen. 

1 08 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

She  did  not  pause  to  figure  out  how  complicated  that 
would  be,  since  the  maid  would  have  to  have  her  maid, 
and  that  maid  hers,  and  so  on,  ad  infinitum,  ad  absurdum. 

Later  Kedzie  found  that  Gilfoyle's  first  intention  was  to 
impoverish  the  rich,  elimousinate  their  wives,  and  put  an 
end  to  luxury.  It  astonished  her  how  furious  he  got  when 
he  read  of  a  ball  given  by  people  of  wealth,  though  a 
Bohemian  dance  at  Webster  Hall  pleased  him  very  much, 
even  though  some  of  the  costumes  made  Kedzie's  Greek 
vest  look  prudish. 

But  all  this  Kedzie  was  to  find  out  after  she  had  mar- 
ried the  wretch.  One  finds  out  so  many  things  when  one 
marries  one.  It  is  like  going  behind  the  scenes  at  a  per- 
formance of  "Romeo  and  Juliet,"  seeing  the  stage-braces 
that  prop  the  canvas  palaces,  and  hearing  Juliet  bawl  out 
Romeo  for  crabbing  her  big  scene.  The  shock  is  apt  to 
be  fatal  to  romance  unless  one  is  prepared  for  it  in  ad- 
vance as  an  inevitable  and  natural  conflict. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

I./'EDZIE  and  Tommie  enjoyed  a  cozy  betrothal.  He 
^*w  was  busy  at  his  shop,  and  she  was  busy  at  hers. 
They  did  not  see  much  of  each  other,  and  that  made  for 
the  prosperity  of  their  love.  They  talked  a  great  deal  of 
marriage,  but  it  seemed  expedient  to  wait  till  one  or  the 
other  acquired  a  raise  of  wage.  The  Silsby  dancers  were 
playing  at  cut  salaries  in  accord  with  the  summer  schedules, 
and  business  was  very  light  at  the  advertising  agency. 

The  last  week  the  troupe  was  playing  at  the  Bronx 
Opera  House,  and  there  Skip  Magruder  chanced  to  see  her 
— to  see  more  of  her  than  he  had  ever  expected  to  on  the 
hither  side  of  matrimony. 

His  old  love  came  back  with  a  tidal  rush,  and  he  sent 
her  a  note  written  with  care  in  a  barroom — or  so  Kedzie 
judged  from  the  beery  fragrance  of  it.  It  said: 

DEAR  ANITA, — Was  considerable  supprise  to  see  you  to-night 
as  didn't  know  you  was  working  in  vawdvul  and  as  I  have 
been  very  loansome  for  you  thought  would  ask  you  would 
you  care  to  take  supper  after  show  with  your  loveing  admirror 
and  friend  will  wait  for  anser  at  stage  door  hopping  to  see  you 
for  Old  Lang's  Sign. 

PATRICK  X.  MAGRUDER — "SKIP." 

Kedzie  did  not  read  this  letter  to  the  gang  of  nymphs. 
She  blushed  bitterly  and  mumbled,  "Well,  of  all  the 
nerve!"  After  some  hesitation  she  wrote  on  Skip's  note 
the  "scatting"  words,  ''Nothing  doing"  and  sent  it  back 
by  the  dismal  stage  doorkeeper. 

She  had  hoped  Skip  would  have  the  decency  to  go 


no 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

away  and  die  quietly  and  not  hang  round  to  see  her  leave 
with  Mr.  Gilfoyle.  Skip  had  a  hitch  in  one  leg,  but  Mr. 
Gilfoyle  had  a  touch  of  writer's  cramp,  and  Kedzie  had 
no  desire  to  see  the  result  of  a  conflict  between  two  such 
victims  of  unpreparedness. 

She  forgot  both  rivals  in  the  excitement  of  a  sudden 
incursion  of  Miss  Silsby,  who  came  crying: 

"Oh,  girls,  girls,  what  Do  you  sup-Pose  has  Happened? 
I  have  been  en-Gaged  to  give  my  dances  at  Noxon's — 
old  Mrs.  Noxon's,  in  Newport." 

Miss  Silsby  always  used  the  first  person  singular,  though 
she  never  danced;  and  if  she  had,  in  the  costume  of  her 
charges,  the  effect  would  have  been  a  fatal  satire. 

By  now  Kedzie  was  familiar  enough  with  names  of 
great  places  to  realize  the  accolade.  To  be  recognized  by 
the  Noxons  was  to  be  patented  by  royalty.  And  Newport 
was  Mecca. 

The  pilgrimage  thither  was  a  voyage  of  discovery  with 
all  an  explorer's  zest.  Her  first  view  of  the  city  disap- 
pointed her,  but  her  education  had  progressed  so  far  that 
she  was  able  to  call  the  pleasant,  crooked  streets  of  the 
older  towns  "picturesque."  A  person  who  is  able  to 
murmur  "How  picturesque!"  has  made  progress  in  snob- 
bical  education.  Kedzie  murmured,  "How  picturesque!" 
when  she  saw  the  humbler  portions  of  Newport. 

But  there  was  a  poignant  sincerity  in  her  admiration  of 
the  homes  of  the  rich.  Bad  taste  with  ostentation  moved 
her  as  deeply  as  true  stateliness.  Her  heart  made  out- 
cry for  experience  of  opulence.  She  now  despised  the 
palaces  of  New  York  because  they  had  no  yards.  New- 
port houses  had  parks.  Newport  was  the  next  candy- 
shop  she  wanted  to  work  in. 

The  splendor  of  the  visit  was  dimmed  for  her,  however, 
when  she  learned  that  she  would  not  be  permitted  to 
swim  at  Bailey's  Beach.  Immediately  she  felt  that 
swimming  anywhere  else  was  contemptible. 

Still,  she  was  seeing  Newport,  and  she  could  not  tell 

in 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

what  swagger  fate  might  now  be  within  reach  of  her 
hands — or  her  feet,  rather — for  Kedzie  was  gaining  her 
golden  apples  not  by  clutching  at  them,  but  by  kicking 
them  off  the  tree  of  opportunity  with  her  carefully  mani- 
cured little  toes. 

Also  she  said  "swagger"  now  instead  of  "classy"  or 
"swell."  Also  she  forgot  to  telegraph  Tommie  Gilfoyle, 
as  she  promised,  of  her  safe  arrival.  Also  she  was  too  busy 
to  write  to  him  that  first  night. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

WHEN  Prissy  Atterbury  started  the  gossip  roll- 
ing that  he  had  seen  Jim  Dyckman  enter  the 
Grand  Central  Terminal  alone  and  wait  for  Charity  Coe 
Cheever  to  come  from  the  same  train  it  did  not  take  long 
for  the  story  to  roll  on  to  Newport.  By  then  it  was  a 
pretty  definite  testimony  of  guilt  in  a  vile  intrigue.  When 
Mrs.  Noxon  announced  her  charity  circus  people  won- 
dered if  even  she  would  dare  include  Mrs.  Cheever  on  her 
bead-roll.  The  afternoon  was  for  guests;  the  evening 
was  for  the  public  at  five  dollars  a  head. 

One  old  crony  of  Charity's,  a  Mrs.  Platen,  revived  the 
story  for  Mrs.  Noxon  at  the  time  when  she  was  editing 
the  list  of  invitations  for  the  afternoon.  Mrs.  Noxon 
seemed  to  be  properly  shocked. 

"Of  course,  you'll  not  invite  her  now,"  said  Mrs. 
Platen. 

"Not  invite  her!"  Mrs.  Noxon  snorted.  " I'll  invite  her 
twice.  In  the  first  place,  I  don't  believe  it  of  Charity 
Coe.  I  knew  her  mother.  In  the  second,  if  it's  true, 
what  of  it  ?  Charity  Coe  has  done  so  much  good  that  she 
has  a  right  to  do  no  end  of  bad  to  balance  her  books." 

To  emphasize  her  support,  Mrs.  Noxon  insisted  on 
Charity  Coe's  coming  to  her  as  a  house-guest  for  a  week 
before  the  fete.  This  got  into  all  the  papers  and  redeemed 
Charity's  good  name  amazingly.  Perhaps  Jim  Dyckman 
saw  it  in  the  papers.  At  least  he  and  his  yacht  drifted 
into  the  harbor  the  day  of  the  affair.  Of  course  he  had 
an  invitation. 

The  Noxon  affair  was  the  usual  thing,  only  a  little  more 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

so.  People  dressed  themselves  as  costlily  as  they  could, 
for  hours  beforehand — then  spent  a  half-hour  or  more 
fuming  in  a  carriage-and-motor  tangle  waiting  to  arrive 
at  the  entrance,  while  the  heat  sweat  all  the  starch  out  of 
themselves  and  their  clothes. 

A  constant  flood  poured  in  upon  Mrs.  Noxon,  or  tried 
to  find  her  at  the  receiving-post.  She  was  usually  not 
there.  She  was  like  a  general  running  a  big  battle.  She 
had  to  gallop  to  odd  spots  now  and  then. 

The  tradition  of  her  selectness  received  a  severe  strain 
in  the  presence  of  such  hordes  of  guests.  They  trod  on 
one  another's  toes,  tripped  on  one  another's  parasols, 
beg-pardoned  with  ill-restrained  wrath,  failed  to  get  near 
enough  to  see  the  sights,  stood  on  tiptoe  or  bent  down 
to  peer  through  elbows  like  children  outside  a  ball-park. 

The  entertainment  was  vaudeville  disguised  by  expense. 
It  was  not  easy  to  hold  the  attention  of  those  surfeited  eyes 
and  ears.  Actors  and  actresses  of  note  almost  perished 
with  wrath  and  humiliation  at  the  indifference  to  their 
arts.  Loud  laughter  from  the  back  rows  broke  in  at  the 
wrong  time,  and  appalling  silences  greeted  the  times  to 
laugh. 

The  fame,  or  notoriety,  of  the  Silsby  dancers  attracted 
a  part  of  the  throng  to  the  marble  swimming-pool  and  the 
terraced  fountain  with  its  deluged  statuary.  Jim  Dyck- 
man  and  Charity  Coe  suddenly  found  themselves  to- 
gether. They  hated  it,  but  they  could  not  easily  escape. 
Jim  felt  that  all  eyes  were  bulging  out  at  them.  He  had 
murder  in  his  heart. 

There  was  the  usual  delay,  the  frank  impatience  and 
leg-fag  of  people  unused  to  standing  about  except  at 
receptions  and  dressmakers'.  Finally  the  snobbish  string- 
orchestra  from  Boston,  which  played  only  the  most  ex- 
clusive music,  began  to  tune  up,  and  at  length,  after 
much  mysterious  wigwagging  of  signals  to  play,  it  played 
a  hunting-piece. 

Suddenly  from  the  foliage  came  what  was  supposed  to 
114 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

be  a  startled  nymph.  The  spectators  were  startled,  too, 
for  a  moment,  for  her  costume  was  amazing.  Even  on 
Bailey's  Beach  it  would  have  attracted  attention. 

Kedzie  was  the  nymph.  She  was  making  her  debut 
into  great  society.  What  would  her  mother  have  said 
if  she  could  have  seen  her  there?  Her  father  would  have 
said  nothing.  He  would  have  fainted  unobtrusively,  for 
the  first  time  in  his  life. 

Kedzie  was  scared.  She  had  stage-fright  of  all  these 
great  people  so  overdressed  when  she  was  not  even  under- 
clothed. 

"Poor  little  thing!"  said  Charity,  and  began  to  applaud 
to  cheer  her  up.  She  nudged  Jim.  "Come  on,  help  her 
out .  Isn't  she  beautiful  ? ' ' 

"Is  she?"  said  Jim,  applauding. 

It  did  not  seem  right  to  praise  one  woman's  beauty  to 
another.  It  was  like  praising  one  author's  work  to  an- 
other, or  praising  another  preacher's  sermon  to  a  preacher's 
face. 

Still,  Jim  had  to  admit  that  Kedzie  was  pretty.  Sud- 
denly he  wanted  to  torment  Charity,  and  so  he  exclaimed: 

"You're  right,  she  is  a  little  corker,  a  very  pleasant 
dream!"  Anger  at  Charity  snatched  away  the  blindfold 
which  is  another  name  for  fidelity.  Scales  fell  from  his 
eyes,  and  he  saw  truth  in  nakedness.  He  saw  beauty 
everywhere.  All  about  him  were  beautiful  women  in 
rich  costume.  He  saw  that  beauty  is  not  a  matter  of 
opinion,  a  decision  of  love's,  but  a  happening  to  be 
regular  or  curvilinear  or  warm  of  color  or  hospitable  in 
expression. 

Particularly  he  saw  the  beauty  of  Kedzie.  There  was 
more  of  her  to  see  than  of  those  other  women  behind  their 
screens  of  silk  and  lace  and  linen.  His  infatuation  for 
Charity  Coe  had  befuddled  him,  wrapped  him  in  a  fog 
through  which  all  other  women  passed  like  swaddled 
figures.  He  felt  free  now. 

Over  Charity's  shoulder  and  through  the  spray  of  the 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

goura  on  her  hat  he  saw  Kedzie  sharp  and  stark,  her 
suavities  of  line  and  the  milk-smooth  fabric  of  her  en- 
velope. He  studied  Kedzie  with  emancipation,  not  seeing 
Charity  at  all  any  more — nor  she  him. 

For  Charity  studied  Kedzie,  too.  She  felt  academically 
the  delight  of  the  girl's  beauty,  a  statue  coming  to  life, 
or  a  living  being  going  back  into  statue — Galatea  in  one 
phase  or  the  other.  She  felt  the  delight  of  the  girl's  suc- 
cessful drawing.  She  smiled  to  behold  it.  Then  her  smile 
drooped,  for  the  words  of  the  old  song  came  back  crooning 
the  ancient  regret: 

How  small  a  part  of  time  they  share — 

There  was  elegy  now  in  Kedzie 's  graces.  Youth  was  of 
their  essence,  and  youth  shakes  off  like  the  dust  on  the 
moth's  wing.  Youth  is  gone  at  a  touch. 

In  her  sorrow  she  turned  to  look  up  at  Jim.  She  was 
shocked  to  see  how  attentively  he  regarded  Kedzie.  He 
startled  her  by  the  fascination  in  his  mien.  She  looked 
again  at  Kedzie. 

Somehow  the  girl  immediately  grew  ugly — or  what 
beauty  she  had  was  that  of  a  poisonous  snake.  And  she 
looked  common,  too.  Who  else  but  a  common  creature 
would  come  out  on  a  lawn  thus  unclothed  for  a  few 
dollars? 

She  looked  again  at  Jim  Dyckman,  and  he  was  not  what 
he  had  been.  He  was  as  changed  as  the  visions  in  Lewis 
Carroll's  poem.  She  saw  that  he  had  his  common  streak, 
too:  he  was  mere  man,  animal,  temptable.  But  she  for- 
gave him.  Curiously,  he  grew  more  valuable  since  she 
felt  that  she  was  losing  him. 

There  was  an  impatient  shaking  at  her  breast.  In  any- 
body else  she  would  have  called  it  jealousy.  This  as- 
tounded her,  made  her  afraid  of  herself  and  of  him.  What 
right  had  she  to  be  jealous  of  anybody  but  Peter  Cheever? 
She  felt  that  she  was  more  indecent  than  Kedzie.  She 

116 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

bowed  her  head  and  blushed.  Scales  fell  from  her  eyes 
also.  She  was  like  Eve  after  the  apple  had  taught  her 
what  she  was.  She  wanted  to  hide.  But  she  could  not 
break  through  the  crowd.  She  must  stand  and  watch  the 
dance  through. 

All  this  brief  while  Kedzie  had  stood  wavering.  There 
had  been  a  hitch  somewhere.  The  other  nymphs  were  de- 
layed in  their  entrance.  One  of  them  had  stepped  on  a 
thorny  rose  and  another  had  ripped  her  tunic — she  came 
in  at  last  with  a  safety-pin  to  protect  her  from  the  law; 
but  then,  safety-pins  are  among  the  primeval  inventions. 

According  to  the  libretto,  the  wood-nymphs,  terrified 
by  a  hunting-party,  ran  to  take  refuge  with  the  water- 
nymphs.  The  water-nymphs  were  late  likewise.  The 
dryads  came  suddenly  through  Mrs.  Noxon's  imported 
shrubs,  puncturing  them  with  rhythmic  attitudes.  These 
lost  something  of  their  poetry  from  being  held  so  long 
that  equilibria  were  lost  foolishly. 

Finally,  the  water-sprites  came  forth  from  cleverly  man- 
aged concealment  in  a  bower  and  stood  mid-thigh  in  the 
water  about  the  fountain.  They  attitudinized  also,  with 
a  kind  of  childish  poetry  that  did  not  quite  convince,  for 
the  fountain  rained  on  them,  and  some  of  them  shivered 
as  cold  gouts  of  water  smote  their  shoulder-blades.  One 
little  Yiddish  nymph  gasped,  "Oi,  oi!"  which  was  perfect 
Greek,  though  she  didn't  know  it.  Neither  did  anybody 
else.  Several  people  snickered. 

The  hunting-music  died  away,  and  the  wood-nymphs 
decided  not  to  go  into  the  water  home;  instead,  they 
implored  the  water-nymphs  to  come  forth  from  their 
liquid  residence.  But  the  water-nymphs  refused.  The 
dryads  tried  to  lure  them  with  gestures  and  dances. 
It  was  all  dreadfully  puerile,  and  yet  somehow  worth 
while. 

The  wood-nymphs  wreathed  a  human  chain  about  the 
marge  of  the  pool.  Unfortunately  the  marble  had  been 
splashed  in  spots  by  the  fountain  spray,  and  it  was  on  the 

117 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

slipperiest  of  the  spots  that  Kedzie  had  to  execute  a 
pirouette. 

Her  pivotal  foot  slid;  the  other  stabbed  down  in  a  wild 
effort  to  restore  her  balance.  It  slipped.  She  knew  that 
she  was  gone.  She  made  frenzied  clutches  at  the  air,  but 
it  would  not  sustain  her.  She  was  strangely  sincere  now 
in  her  gestures.  The  crowd  laughed — then  stopped  short. 

It  was  funny  till  it  looked  as  if  the  nymph  might  be 
hurt.  Jim  Dyckman  darted  forward  to  save  her.  He 
knocked  Charity  aside  roughly  and  did  not  know  it.  He 
arrived  too  late  to  catch  Kedzie. 

Kedzie  sat  into  the  pool  with  great  violence.  The  spray 
she  cast  up  fatally  spotted  several  delicate  robes.  That 
would  have  been  of  some  consolation  to  Kedzie  if  she  had 
known  it.  But  all  she  knew  was  that  she  went  backward 
into  the  wrong  element.  Her  wrath  was  greater  than  her 
sorrow. 

Her  head  went  down:  she  swallowed  a  lot  of  water, 
and  when  she  kicked  herself  erect  at  last  she  was  half 
strangled,  entirely  drenched,  and  quite  blinded.  The 
other  nymphs,  wood  and  water,  giggled  and  shook  with 
sisterly  affection. 

Kedzie  was  the  wettest  dryad  that  ever  was.  She 
stumbled  forward,  groping.  Jim  Dyckman  bent,  slipped 
his  hands  under  her  arms,  and  hoisted  her  to  land.  He 
felt  ludicrous,  but  his  chivalry  was  automatic. 

Kedzie  was  so  angry  at  herself  and  everybody  else  that 
she  flung  off  his  hands  and  snapped,  "Quit  it,  dog  on  it!" 

Jim  Dyckman  quit  it.  He  had  for  his  pains  an  insult 
and  a  suit  of  clothes  so  drenched  that  he  had  to  go  back  to 
his  yacht,  running  the  gantlet  of  a  hundred  ridicules. 

When  he  vanished  Kedzie  found  herself  in  garments 
doubly  clinging  from  being  soaked.  She  was  ashamed 
now,  and  hid  her  face  in  her  arm. 

Charity  Coe  took  pity  on  her,  and  before  the  jealous 
Charity  could  check  the  generous  Charity  she  had  stepped 
forward  and  thrown  about  the  girl's  shoulders  a  light  wrap 

118 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

she  carried.  She  led  the  child  to  the  other  wood-nymphs, 
and  they  took  her  back  into  the  shrubbery. 

"Wait  till  you  hear  what  Miss  Silsby's  gotta  say!" 
said  one  dryad,  and  another  added: 

"  Woisse  than  that  is  this:  you  know  who  that  was  you 
flang  out  at  so  regardless?" 

"I  don't  know,  and  I  don't  care,"  sobbed  Kedzie. 

"  You  would  care  if  you  was  wise  to  who  His  Nibs  was !" 

"Who  was  it?"  Kedzie  gasped. 

"Jim  Dyckman — no  less!  You  was  right  in  his  arms, 
and  you  hadda  go  an'  biff  him." 

"Oh,  Lord!"  sighed  Kedzie.  "I'll  never  do."  She 
was  thinking  that  destiny  had  tossed  her  into  the  very  arms 
of  the  aristocracy  and  she  had  been  fool  enough  to  fight 
her  way  out. 

Jim  Dyckman,  meanwhile,  was  clambering  into  his  car 
with  clothes  and  ardor  dampened.  He  was  swearing  to 
cut  out  the  whole  herd  of  women. 

And  Charity  Coe  Cheever  was  chattering  flippantly 
with  a  group  of  the  dispersing  audience,  while  her  heart 
was  in  throes  of  dismay  at  her  own  feelings  and  Jim 
Dyckman's. 


THE    SECOND    BOOK 

MRS.    TOMMIE    GILFOYLE   HAS 
HER    PICTURE    TAKEN 


CHAPTER  I 

'""PHE  scene  was  like  one  of  the  overcrowded  tapestries 
I  of  the  Middle  Ages.  At  the  top  was  the  Noxon  palace, 
majestic,  serene,  self-confident  in  the  correctness  of  its 
architecture  and  not  afraid  even  of  the  ocean  outspread 
below. 

The  house  looked  something  like  Mrs.  Noxon  at  her 
best.  Just  now  she  was  at  her  worst.  She  stood  by  her 
marble  pool  and  glared  at  her  mob  of  guests  dispersing 
in  knots  of  laughter  and  indifference.  There  were  hun- 
dreds of  men  and  women  of  all  ages  and  sizes,  and  almost 
all  of  them  were  startling  the  summer  of  1915  with  the 
fashion-plates  of  1916. 

Mrs.  Noxon  turned  from  them  to  the  dispersing  nymphs 
of  Miss  Silsby's  troupe.  The  nymphs  were  dressed  in  the 
fashion  of  916  B.C.  They  also  were  laughing  and 
snickering,  as  they  sauntered  toward  the  clump  of  trees 
and  shrubs  which  masked  their  dressing-tent.  One  of 
them  was  not  laughing — Kedzie.  She  was  slinking  along 
in  wet  clothes  and  doused  pride.  The  beautiful  wrap  that 
Mrs.  Charity  Cheever  had  flung  about  her  she  had  let 
fall  and  drag  in  a  damp  mess. 

Mrs.  Noxon  was  tempted  to  hobble  after  Kedzie  and 
smack  her  for  her  outrageous  mishap.  But  she  could  not 
afford  the  luxury.  She  must  laugh  with  her  guests.  She 
marched  after  them  to  take  her  medicine  of  raillery  more 
or  less  concealed  as  they  went  to  look  at  the  other  side- 
shows and  permit  themselves  to  be  robbed  handsomely  for 
charity. 

Kedzie  was  afraid  to  meet  Miss  Silsby,  but  there  was  no 

123 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

escape.  The  moment  the  shrubs  closed  behind  her  she 
fell  into  the  ambush.  Miss  Silsby  was  shrill  with  rage 
and  scarlet  in  the  face.  She  swore,  and  she  looked  as  if 
she  would  scratch. 

"You  miserable  little  fool!"  she  began.  "You  ought 
to  be  whipped  within  an  inch  of  your  life.  You  have 
ruined  me!  It  was  the  biggest  chance  of  my  career.  I 
should  have  been  a  made  woman  if  it  hadn't  been  for  you. 
Now  I  shall  be  the  joke  of  the  world !" 

"Please,  Miss  Silsby,"  Kedzie  protested,  "if  you  please, 
Miss  Silsby — I  didn't  mean  to  fall  into  the  water.  I'm  as 
sorry  as  I  can  be." 

"What  good  does  it  do  me  for  you  to  be  sorry?  I'm 
the  one  to  be  sorry.  I  should  think  you  would  have 
had  more  sense  than  to  do  such  a  thing!" 

"How  could  I  help  it,  dog  on  it!"  Kedzie  retorted,  her 
anger  recrudescent. 

"Help  it?     Are  you  a  dancer  or  are  you  a  cow?" 

Kedzie  quivered  as  if  she  had  been  lashed.  She  struck 
back  with  her  best  Nimrim  repartee,  "You're  a  nice  one 
to  call  me  a  cow,  you  big,  fat,  old  lummox!" 

Miss  Silsby  fairly  mooed  at  this. 

"You — you  insolent  little  rat,  you!  You — oh,  you — 
you!  I'll  never  let  you  dance  for  me  again — never!" 

"I'd  better  resign,  then,  I  suppose,"  said  Kedzie. 

"Resign?  How  dare  you  resign !  You're  fired!  That's 
how  you'll  resign.  You're  fired!  The  impudence  of  her! 
She  turns  my  life-work  into  a  laughing-stock  and  then 
says  she'd  better  resign!" 

"How  about  to-night?"  Kedzie  put  in,  dazed. 

' '  Never  you  mind  about  to-night .  I'll  get  along  without 
you  if  I  have  to  dance  myself." 

The  other  nymphs  shook  under  this,  like  corn-stalks 
in  a  wind. 

But  Kedzie  was  a  statuette  of  pathos.  She  stood 
cowering  barelegged  before  Miss  Silsby,  fully  clothed  in 
everything  but  her  right  mind.  There  was  nothing  Gre- 

124 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

cian  about  Miss  Silsby  except  the  Medusa  glare,  and  that 
turned  Kedzie  into  stone.  She  finished  her  tirade  by 
thrusting  some  money  into  Kedzie 's  hand  and  clamoring: 

"  Get  into  your  clothes  and  get  out  of  my  sight." 

Rage  made  Miss  Silsby  generous.  She  paid  Kedzie  an 
extra  week  and  her  fare  to  New  York.  Kedzie  had  no 
pocket  to  put  her  money  in.  She  carried  it  in  her  hand 
and  laid  it  on  the  table  in  the  tent  as  she  bent  to  whip  her 
lithe  form  out  of  her  one  dripoing  garment. 

The  other  nymphs  followed  her  into  the  tent  and  made 
a  Parthenonian  frieze  as  they  writhed  out  of  their  tunics 
and  into  their  petticoats.  They  gathered  about  Kedzie 
in  an  ivory  cluster  and  murmured  their  sympathy — Miss 
Silsby  not  being  within  ear-shot. 

Kedzie  blubbered  bitterly  as  she  glided  into  her  every- 
day things,  hooking  her  corsets  askew,  drawing  her 
stockings  up  loosely,  and  lacing  her  boots  all  wrong.  She 
was  still  jolted  with  sobs  as  she  pushed  the  hat-pins  home 
in  her  traveling-hat. 

She  kissed  the  other  girls  good-by.  They  were  sorry 
to  see  her  go,  now  that  she  was  going.  And  she  was  very 
sorry  to  go,  now  that  she  had  to. 

If  she  had  lingered  awhile  Miss  Silsby  would  have  found 
her  there  when  she  relented  from  sheer  exhaustion  of 
wrath,  and  would  have  restored  her  to  favor.  But  Kedzie 
had  stolen  away  in  craven  meekness. 

To  reach  the  trade-entrance  Kedzie  had  to  skirt  the 
accursed  pool  of  her  destruction.  Charity  Coe  was  near 
it,  seated  on  a  marble  bench  alone.  She  was  pensive  with 
curious  thoughts.  She  heard  Kedzie's  childish  snivel  as 
she  passed.  Charity  looked  up,  recognized  the  girl  with 
difficulty,  and  after  a  moment's  hesitation  called  to  her: 

"What's  the  matter,  you  poor  child?  Come  here! 
What's  wrong?" 

Kedzie  suffered  herself  to  be  checked.  She  dropped  on 
the  bench  alongside  Charity  and  wailed: 

"I  fell  into  that  damn'  pool,  and  I've  lost  my  jah-ob!" 

"5 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Charity  patted  the  shaken  back  a  moment,  and  said, 
"But  there  are  other  jobs,  aren't  there?" 

"I  don't  know  of  any." 

"Well,  I'll  find  you  one,  my  dear,  if  you'll  only  smile. 
You  have  such  a  pretty  smile." 

"How  do  you  know?"  Kedzie  queried,  giving  her  a 
sample  of  her  best. 

Charity  laughed.  "See!  That  proves  it.  You  are  a 
darling,  and  too  pretty  to  lack  for  a  job.  Give  me  your 
address,  and  I'll  get  you  a  better  place  than  you  lost.  I 
promise  you." 

Kedzie  ransacked  her  hand-bag  and  found  a  printed  card, 
crumpled  and  rouge-stained.  She  poked  it  at  Charity, 
who  read  and  commented: 

"Miss  Anita  Adair,  eh?  Such  a  pretty  name!  And 
the  address,  my  dear — if  you  don't  mind.  I  am  Mrs. 
Cheever." 

" Oh,  are  you!"  Kedzie  exclaimed.  "  I've  heard  of  you. 
Pleased  to  meet  you." 

Then  Kedzie  whimpered,  and  Charity  wrote  the  address 
and  repeated  her  assurances.  She  also  gave  Kedzie  her 
own  card  and  asked  her  to  write  to  her.  That  seemed  to 
end  the  interview,  and  so  Kedzie  rose  and  said:  "Much 
obliged.  I  guess  I  gotta  go  now.  G'-by!" 

"Good-by,"  said  Charity.     "I'll  not  forget  you." 

Kedzie  moved  on  humbly.  She  looked  back.  Charity 
had  fallen  again  into  a  listless  reverie.  She  seemed  sad. 
Kedzie  wondered  what  on  earth  she  could  have  to  be 
sorry  about.  She  had  money  and  a  husband,  and  she  was 
swagger. 

Kedzie  slipped  through  the  gate  out  to  the  road.  She 
did  not  dare  hire  a  carriage,  now  that  she  was  jobless. 
She  wished  she  had  not  left  paradise.  But  she  dared  not 
try  to  return.  She  was  not  "classy"  enough.  Suddenly 
a  spasm  of  resentment  shook  the  girl. 

She  felt  the  hatred  of  the  rich  that  always  set  Tommie 
Gilfoyle  afire.  What  right  had  such  people  to  such  maj- 

126 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

esty  when  Kedzie  must  walk?  What  right  had  they  to 
homes  and  yards  so  big  that  it  tired  Kedzie  out  just  to 
trudge  past?  Who  was  this  Mrs.  Cheever,  that  she  should 
be  so  top-lofty  and  bend-downy?  Kedzie  ground  her 
teeth  in  anger  and  tore  Charity's  card  to  bits.  She  flung 
them  at  the  sea,  but  the  wind  brought  them  back  about  her 
face  stingingly.  She  walked  on,  loathing  the  very  motors 
that  flashed  by,  flocks  of  geese  squawking  contempt. 

She  walked  and  walked  and  walked.  The  overpowering 
might  of  the  big  houses  in  their  green  demesnes  made  her 
feel  smaller  and  wearier,  but  big  with  bitterness.  She 
would  have  been  glad  to  have  a  suit-case  full  of  bombs  to 
blow  those  snobbish  residences  into  flinders. 

She  was  dog  tired  when,  after  losing  her  way  again  and 
again,  she  reached  the  boarding-house  where  the  dancers 
lodged.  She  packed  her  things  and  went  to  the  train, 
lugging  her  own  baggage.  When  she  reached  the  station 
she  was  footsore,  heartsore,  soulsore.  Her  only  comfort 
was  that  the  Silsby  dancers  had  been  placed  early  enough 
on  Mrs.  Noxon's  program  for  her  to  have  failed  in  time 
to  get  home  the  same  day.  She  hated  Newport  now.  It 
had  not  been  good  to  her.  New  York  was  home  once 
more. 

"When's  the  next  train  to  New  York?"  she  asked  a 
porter. 

"It's  wint,"  said  the  porter.     "Wint  at  four-five." 

"I  said  when's  the  next  train,"  Kedzie  snapped. 

"T'-marra1  marnin',"  said  the  porter. 

"My  Gawd!"  said  Kedzie.  "Have  I  gotta  spend  the 
night  in  this  hole?" 

The  porter  stared.  He  was  not  used  to  hearing  Mecca 
called  a  hole. 

"Well,  if  it's  that  bad,"  he  grinned,  "you  might  take 
the  five-five  to  Providence  and  pick  up  the  six-forty  there. 
But  you'll  have  to  git  a  move  on." 

Kedzie  got  a  move  on.  The  train  swept  her  out  along 
the  edge  of  Rhode  Island.  She  knew  nothing  of  its  heroic 

127 


WE   CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

history.  She  cared  nothing  for  its  heroic  splendor.  She 
thought  of  it  only  as  the  stronghold  of  an  embattled  aris- 
tocracy. She  did  not  blame  Miss  Silsby  for  her  disgrace, 
nor  herself.  She  blamed  the  audience,  as  other  actors 
and  authors  and  politicians  do.  She  blazed  with  the 
merciless  hatred  of  the  rich  that  poor  people  feel  when  they 
are  thwarted  in  their  efforts  to  rival  or  cultivate  or  sell 
to  the  rich.  Their  own  sins  they  forget  as  absolved, 
because  the  sins  have  failed.  It  is  the  success  of  sin  and 
the  sin  of  success  that  cannot  be  forgiven. 

The  little  dancer  whose  foot  had  slipped  on  the  wet 
marble  of  wealth  was  shaken  almost  to  pieces  by  philo- 
sophic vibrations  too  big  for  her  exquisite  frame.  They 
reminded  her  of  her  poet,  of  Tommie  Gilfoyle,  who  was 
afraid  of  her  and  paid  court  to  her.  He  appeared  to  her 
now  as  a  radiant  angel  of  redemption.  From  Providence 
she  telegraphed  him  that  she  would  arrive  at  New  York 
at  eleven-fifteen,  and  he  would  meet  her  if  he  loved  her. 

This  done,  she  went  to  the  lunch-counter,  climbed  on 
a  tall  stool,  and  bought  herself  a  cheap  dinner.  She  was 
paying  for  it  out  of  her  final  moneys,  and  her  brain  once 
more  told  her  stomach  that  it  would  have  to  be  prudent. 
She  swung  aboard  the  train  when  it  came  in,  and  felt  as 
secure  as  a  lamb  with  a  good  shepherd  on  the  horizon. 
When  she  grew  drowsy  she  curled  up  on  the  seat  and  slept 
to  perfection. 

Her  invasion  of  Newport  was  over  and  done — dis- 
astrously done,  she  thought;  but  its  results  were  just 
beginning  for  Jim  Dyckman  and  Charity  Coe. 

Eventually  Kedzie  reached  the  Grand  Central  Terminal 
— a  much  different  Kedzie  from  the  one  that  once  followed 
her  father  and  mother  up  that  platform  to  that  concourse! 
Her  very  name  was  different,  and  her  mind  had  learned 
multitudes  of  things  good  and  bad.  She  had  a  young 
man  waiting  for  her — a  poet,  a  socialist,  a  worshiper. 
Her  heavy  suit-case  could  not  detain  her  steps.  She 
dragged  it  as  a  little  sloop  drags  its  anchor  in  a  gale. 

128 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Gilfoyle  was  waiting  for  her  at  the  barrier.  He  bent  to 
snatch  the  suit-case  from  her  and  snatched  a  kiss  at  the 
same  time.  His  bravery  thrilled  her;  his  gallantry  com- 
forted her  immeasurably.  She  was  so  proud  of  herself  and 
of  him  that  she  wasted  never  a  glance  at  the  powdered  gold 
on  the  blue  ceiling. 

"  I'm  terrible  glad  to  see  you,  Tommie,"  she  said. 

"Are  you?     Honest?"  he  chortled. 

They  jostled  into  each  other  and  the  crowd. 

"I'm  awful  hungry,  though,"  she  said,  "and  I've  got 
oodles  of  things  to  tell  you." 

"Let's  eat,"  he  said.  They  went  to  the  all-night  dairy 
restaurant  in  the  Terminal.  He  led  her  to  one  of  the  broad- 
armed  chairs  and  fetched  her  dainties — a  triangle  of  apple 
pie,  a  circle  of  cruller,  and  a  cylinder  of  milk. 

She  leaned  across  the  arm  of  the  chair  and  told  him  of 
her  mishaps.  He  was  so  enraged  that  he  knocked  a  plate 
to  the  floor.  She  snatched  the  cruller  off  just  in  time  to 
save  it,  and  the  room  echoed  her  laughter. 

They  talked  and  talked  until  she  was  talked  out,  and  it 
was  midnight.  He  began  to  worry  about  the  hour.  It 
was  a  long  ride  on  the  Subway  and  then  a  long  walk 
to  her  boarding-house  and  then  a  long  walk  and  a  long  ride 
to  his. 

"  I  hate  to  go  back  to  that  awful  Jambers  woman  and 
let  her  know  I'm  fired,"  Kedzie  moaned.  "  My  trunk's  in 
storage,  anyhow,  and  maybe  she's  got  no  room." 

"Why  go  back?"  said  Tommie,  not  realizing  the  import 
of  his  words.  It  was  merely  his  philosophical  habit  to 
ask  every  custom  "Why?" 

"Where  else  is  there  to  go  to?"  she  sighed. 

"  If  we  were  only  married — "  he  sighed. 

"Why,  Tommie!" 

"  As  we  ought  to  be!" 

"Why,  Tommie  Gilfoyle!" 

And  now  he  was  committed.  As  when  he  wrote  poetry 
the  grappling-hooks  of  rhyme  dragged  him  into  statements 
9  129 


WE    CAN'T  HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"he  had  not  dreamed  of  at  the  start  and  was  afraid  of  at  the 
finish — so  now  he  stumbled  into  a  proposal  he  could  not 
clamber  out  of.  He  must  flounder  through. 

The  idea  was  so  deliciously  unexpected,  so  fascinatingly 
novel  to  Kedzie,  that  she  fell  in  love  with  it.     Immediately 
.•she  would  rather  have  died  than  remain  unmarried  to 
Tommie  Gilfoyle. 
But  there  were  difficulties. 


CHAPTER  II 

IN  the  good  old  idyllic  days  it  had  been  possible  for 
romantic  youth  to  get  married  as  easily  as  to  get  din- 
ner— and  as  hard  to  get  unmarried  as  to  get  wings. 
Couples  who  spooned  too  long  at  seaside  resorts  and  missed 
the  last  train  home  could  wake  up  a  preacher  and  be 
united  in  indissoluble  bonds  of  holy  matrimony  for  two 
dollars.  The  preachers  of  that  day  slept  light,  in  order  to 
save  the  reputations  of  foolish  virgins. 

But  now  a  greedy  and  impertinent  civil  government  had 
stepped  in  and*sacrilegiously  insisted  on  having  a  license 
bought  and  paid  for  before  the  Church  could  officiate. 
And  the  license  bureau  was  not  open  all  night,  as  it  should 
have  been. 

Kedzie  knew  nothing  of  this,  but  Gilfoyle  was  in- 
formed. Theoretically  he  believed  that  marriage  should 
be  rendered  impossible  and  divorce  easy.  But  he  could 
no  more  have  proposed  an  informal  alliance  with  his 
precious  Kedzie  than  he  could  have  wished  that  his  mother 
had  made  one  with  his  father.  His  mother  and  father  had 
eloped  and  been  married  by  a  sleepy  preacher,  but  that 
was  poetic  and  picturesque,  seeing  that  they  did  not  fail 
to  wake  the  preacher.  Gilfoyle's  reverence  for  Kedzie 
demanded  at  least  as  much  sanctity  about  his  union  with 
her. 

It  is  curious  how  habits  complicate  life.  Here  were  two 
people  whom  it  would  greatly  inconvenience  to  separate. 
Yet  just  because  it  was  a  custom  to  close  the  license 
bureau  in  the  late  afternoon  they  must  wait  half  a  night 
while  the  license  clerk  slept  and  snored,  or  played  cards 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

or  read  detective  stories  or  did  whatever  license  clerks  do 
between  midnight  and  office  hours.  And  just  because  peo- 
ple habitually  crawl  into  bed  and  sleep  between  midnight 
and  forenoon,  these  two  lovers  were  already  finding  it 
hard  to  keep  awake  in  spite  of  all  their  exaltation.  They 
simply  must  sleep.  Romance  could  wait. 

Gilfoyle  knew  that  there  were  places  enough  where 
Kedzie  and  he  could  go  and  have  no  questions  asked 
except,  "Have  you  got  baggage,  or  will  you  pay  in 
advance?"  But  he  would  not  take  his  Kedzie  to  any  such 
place,  any  more  than  he  would  leave  a  chalice  in  a  saloon 
for  safe-keeping. 

In  their  drowsy  brains  projects  danced  sparklingly,  but 
they  could  find  nothing  to  do  except  to  part  for  the 
eternity  of  the  remnant  of  the  night.  So  Gilfoyle 
escorted  Kedzie  to  the  Hotel  Belmont  door,  and  told 
her  to  say  she  was  an  actress  arrived  on  a  late  train.  He 
stood  off  at  a  distance  while  he  saw  that  she  registered 
and  was  respectfully  treated  and  led  to  the  elevator  by 
a  page. 

Then  he  moved  west  to  the  Hotel  Manhattan  and  found 
shelter.  And  thus  they  slept  with  propriety,  Forty-second 
Street  lying  between  them  like  a  sword. 

The  alarm-clock  in  Gilfoyle's  head  woke  him  at  seven. 
He  hated  to  interrupt  Kedzie's  sleep,  but  he  was  afraid 
of  his  boss  and  he  needed  his  salary  more  than  ever — twice 
as  much  as  ever.  He  telephoned  from  his  room  to  Kedzie's 
room  down  the  street  and  up  ten  stories  and  was  com- 
forted to  find  that  he  woke  her  out  of  a  sleep  so  sound 
that  he  could  hardly  understand  her  words.  But  he 
eventually  made  sure  that  she  would  make  haste  to  dress 
and  meet  him  in  the  restaurant. 

They  breakfasted  together  at  half  past  eight.  Kedzie 
was  aglow  with  the  whole  procedure. 

"You  ought  to  write  a  novel  about  us,"  she  told  Gil- 
foyle. "  It  would  be  a  lot  better  than  most  of  the  awful 
stories  folks  write  nowadays.  And  you'd  make  a  million 

132 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

dollars,  I  bet.  We  need  a  lot  of  money  now,  too,  don't 
we?" 

"A  whole  lot,"  said  Gilfoyle,  who  was  beginning  to  fret 
over  the  probable  cost  of  the  breakfast. 

It  cost  more  than  he  expected — as  he  expected.  But 
he  was  in  for  it,  and  he  trusted  that  the  Lord  would  pro- 
vide. They  bought  a  ring  at  a  petty  jewelry-shop  in 
Forty-second  Street  and  then  descended  to  a  Subway 
express  and  emerged  at  the  Brooklyn  Bridge  Station. 

The  little  old  City  Hall  sat  among  the  overtowering 
buildings  like  an  exquisite  kitten  surrounded  by  mastiffs, 
but  Gilfoyle's  business  took  him  and  his  conquest  into  the 
enormous  Municipal  Building,  whose  windy  arcades  blew 
Kedzie  against  him  with  a  pleasant  clash. 

The  winds  of  life  indeed  had  blown  them  together  as 
casually  as  two  leaves  met  in  the  same  gutter.  But  they 
thought  it  a  divine  encounter  arranged  from  eons  back  and 
to  continue  for  eons  forward.  They  thought  it  so  at  that 
time. 

They  went  up  in  the  elevator  to  the  second  floor,  where, 
in  the  fatal  Room  258,  clerks  at  several  windows  vended 
for  a  dollar  apiece  the  State's  permission  to  experiment 
with  matrimony. 

There  was  a  throng  ahead  of  them — brides,  grooms, 
parents,  and  witnesses  of  various  nationalities.  All  of 
them  looked  shabby  and  common,  even  to  Kedzie  in  her 
humility.  All  over  the  world  couples  were  mating,  as  the 
birds  and  animals  and  flowers  and  chemicals  mate  in  their 
seasons.  The  human  pairs  advertised  their  union  by 
numberless  rites  of  numberless  religions  and  non-religions. 
The  presence  or  absence  of  rite  or  its  nature  seemed  to 
make  little  difference  in  the  prosperity  of  the  emulsion. 
The  presence  or  absence  of  romance  seemed  to  make  little 
difference,  either.  But  it  seemed  to  be  generally  agreed 
upon  as  a  policy  around  the  world  that  marriage  should 
be  made  exceedingly  easy,  and  unmarriage  exceedingly 
difficult.  In  recruiting  armies  the  same  plan  is  observed; 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

every  encouragement  is  offered  to  enlist;  one  has  only  to 
step  in  off  the  street  and  enlist.  But  getting  free!  That 
is  not  the  object  of  the  recruiting  business. 

Gilfoyle  and  Kedzie  had  to  wait  their  turns  before  they 
could  reach  a  window.  Then  they  had  a  cross-examina- 
tion to  face. 

Kedzie  giggled  a  good  deal,  and  she  leaned  softly  against 
the  hard  shoulder  of  Gilfoyle  while  the  clerk  quizzed  him 
as  to  his  full  name,  color,  residence,  age,  occupation,  birth- 
place, the  name  of  his  father  and  mother  and  the  country 
of  their  birth,  and  the  number  of  his  previous  marriages. 

She  grew  abruptly  solemn  when  the  clerk  looked  at  her 
for  answers  to  the  same  questions  on  her  part;  for  she 
realized  that  she  was  expected  to  tell  her  real  name  and 
her  parents'  real  names.  She  would  have  to  confess  to 
Tommie  that  she  had  deceived  him  and  cheated  him  out 
of  a  beautiful  poem.  Had  he  known  the  truth  he  would 
never  have  written: 

Pretty  maid,  pretty  maid,  may  I  call  you  Kedzie? 
Your  last  name  is  Thropp,  but  your  first  name  is — 

Nothing  rhymed  with  Kedzie. 

While  she  gaped,  wordless,  Gilfoyle  magnificently  spoke 
for  her,  proudly  informed  the  clerk  that  her  name  was 
' '  Anita  Adair , ' '  that  she  was  white  (he  nearly  said  ' '  pink  " ) , 
that  her  age  was — he  had  to  ask  that,  and  she  told  him 
nineteen.  He  gave  her  residence  as  New  York  and  her 
occupation  as  "none." 

"What  is  your  father's  first  name,  honey?"  he  said,  a 
little  startled  to  realize  how  little  he  knew  of  her  or  her 
past.  She  had  learned  much  news  of  him,  too,  in  hearing 
his  own  answers. 

"Adna."  she  whispered,  and  he  told  the  clerk  that  her 
father's  name  was  Adna  Adair.  She  told  the  truth  about 
her  mother's  maiden  name.  She  could  afford  to  do  that, 
and  she  could  honestly  aver  that  she  had  never  had  any 
husband  or  husbands  "up  to  yet,"  and  that  she  had  not 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

been  divorced  "so  far."  Also  both  declared  that  they 
knew  of  no  legal  impediment  to  their  marriage.  There 
are  so  few  legal  impediments  to  marriage,  and  so  many 
to  the  untying  of  the  knot  into  which  almost  anybody 
can  tie  almost  anybody! 

The  clerk's  facile  pen  ran  here  and  there,  and  the  license 
was  delivered  at  length  on  the  payment  of  a  dollar.  For 
one  almighty  dollar  the  State  gave  the  two  souls  per- 
mission to  commit  mutual  mortgage  for  life. 

Gilfoyle  was  growing  nervous.  He  told  Kedzie  that 
he  was  expected  at  the  office.  There  were  several  adver- 
tisements to  write  for  the  next  day's  papers,  and  he  had 
given  the  firm  no  warning  of  what  he  had  not  foreseen 
the  day  before.  If  they  hunted  for  a  preacher,  Gilfoyle 
would  get  into  trouble  with  Mr.  Kiam. 

If  they  had  listened  to  the  excellent  motto,  "Business 
before  pleasure,"  they  might  never  have  been  married. 
That  would  have  saved  them  a  vast  amount  of  heart- 
ache, both  blissful  and  hateful.  But  they  were  afraid  to 
postpone  their  nuptials.  The  mating  instinct  had  them 
in  its  grip. 

They  fretted  awhile  in  the  hurlyburly  of  other  love- 
mad  couples  and  wondered  what  to  do.  Gilfoyle  finally 
pushed  up  to  one  of  the  windows  again  and  asked: 

"What's  the  quickest  way  to  get  married?  Isn't  there 
a  preacher  or  alderman  or  something  handy?" 

"Aldermen  are  not  allowed  to  marry  folks  any  more," 
he  was  told.  "  But  the  City  Clerk  will  hitch  you  up  for  a 
couple  of  dollars.  The  marriage-room  is  right  up-stairs." 

This  seemed  the  antipodes  of  romance  and  Gilfoyle 
hesitated  to  decide. 

But  Kedzie,  knowing  his  religious  ardor  against  re- 
ligions, said: 

"What's  the  diff?     I  don't  mind." 

Gilfoyle  smiled  at  last,  and  the  impatient  lovers  hur- 
ried out  into  the  corridor.  They  would  not  wait  for  the 
elevator,  but  ran  up  the  steps.  They  passed  a  trio  of 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

youth,  a  girl  and  two  young  fellows.  One  of  the  lads  gave 
the  other  a  shove  that  identified  the  bridegroom.  The 
-girl  was  holding  her  left  hand  up  and  staring  at  her  new 
ring.  A  pessimist  might  have  seen  a  portent  in  the 
cynical  amusement  of  her  smile,  and  another  in  the 
aweless  speed  with  which  Gilfoyle  and  Kedzie  hustled 
toward  the  awful  mystery  of  such  a  union  as  marriage 
•attempts. 

The  wedlock-factory  was  busy.  In  spite  of  the  earliness 
of  the  hour  the  waiting-room  was  crowded,  its  benches  full. 
The  only  place  for  Kedzie  to  sit  was  next  to  a  couple  of 
negroes,  the  man  in  Ethiopian  foppery  grinning  up  into 
the  face  of  a  woman  who  held  his  hat  and  cane,  and 
simpered  in  ebony. 

Kedzie  whispered  to  Gilfoyle  her  displeased  surprise: 

*' Why,  they  act  just  like  we  do." 

Kedzie  liked  to  use  like  like  that.  She  felt  belittled 
at  sharing  with  such  people  an  emotion  that  seemed  to  her 
far  too  good  for  them.  Also  she  felt  that  the  emotion  itself 
was  cheapened  by  such  company.  She  wished  she  had  not 
consented  to  the  marriage.  But  it  would  excite  attention 
to  back  out  now,  and  the  dollar  already  invested  would  be 
wasted.  For  all  she  knew,  the  purchase  of  the  license 
compelled  the  completion  of  the  project. 

A  group  of  Italians  came  from  Room  365 — two  girls  in 
white,  a  bareheaded  mother  who  had  been  weeping,  a  fat 
and  relieved-looking  father,  an  insignificant  youth  who  was 
unquestionably  the  new-born  husband. 

Gilfoyle  kept  looking  at  his  watch,  but  he  had  to  wait 
his  turn.  There  was  a  book  to  be  signed  and  a  two- 
dollar  bill  to  be  paid.  At  last,  when  the  negro  pair  came 
forth  chuckling,  Kedzie  and  Gilfoyle  rushed  into  the  so- 
called  "chapel"  to  meet  their  fate. 

The  chapel  was  a  barrenly  furnished  office.  Its  nearest 
approach  to  an  altar  was  a  washstand  with  hot  and  cold 
running  water.  At  the  small  desk  the  couple  stood  while 
the  City  Clerk  read  the  pledge  drawn  up  in  the  Corpora- 

136 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

tion  Counsel's  office  with  a  sad  mixture  of  religious,  legal, 
and  commercial  cant : 

"In  the  name  of  God,  Amen. 

"Do  either  of  you  know  of  any  impediment  why  you  should 
not  be  legally  joined  together  in  matrimony,  or  if  any  one 
present  can  show  any  just  cause  why  these  parties  should 
not  be  legally  joined  together  in  matrimony  let  them  now 
speak  or  hereafter  hold  their  peace. 

"Do  you,  Thomas  Gilfoyle,  take  this  woman  as  your  lawfully 
wedded  wife,  to  live  together  in  the  state  of  matrimony?  Will 
you  love,  honor,  and  keep  her,  as  a  faithful  man  is  bound  to  do, 
in  health,  sickness,  prosperity,  and  adversities,  and  forsaking  all 
others  keep  you  alone  unto  her  as  long  as  you  both  shall  live? 

"  Do  you,  Anita  Adair,  take  this  man  for  your  lawfully  wedded 
husband  to  live  together  in  the  state  of  matrimony?  Will  you 
love,  honor,  and  cherish  him  as  a  faithful  woman  is  bound  to 
do,  in  health,  sickness,  prosperity,  and  adversities,  and  forsaking 
all  others  keep  you  alone  unto  him  as  along  as  you  both  shall  live? 

"For  as  both  have  consented  in  wedlock  and  have  acknowl- 
edged same  before  this  company  I  do  by  virtue  of  the  authority 
vested  in  me  by  the  laws  of  the  State  of  New  York  now  pro- 
nounce you  husband  and  wife. 

"And  may  God  bless  your  union." 

The  City  Clerk  had  to  furnish  witnesses,  from  his  own 
staff  while  he  administered  the  secular  rites  and  exacted 
the  solemn  promises  which  so  few  have  kept,  and  invoked 
the  help  of  God  which  is  so  rarely  manifest  or  so  subtly 
hidden,  in  the  human-animal-angel  relation  of  marriage. 

And  now  Anita  Adair  and  Thomas  Gilfoyle  were  of- 
ficially welded  into  one.  They  had  received  the  full 
franchise  each  of  the  other's  body,  soul,  brain,  time, 
temper,  liberty,  leisure,  admiration,  education,  past, 
future,  health,  wealth,  strength,  weakness,  virtue,  vice, 
destructive  power,  procreative  power,  parental  gift  or 
lack,  domestic  or  bedouin  genius,  prejudice,  inheritance — 
all. 

It  was  a  large  purchase  for  three  dollars,  and  it  remained 
to  be  seen  whether  either  or  both  delivered  the  goods.  At 
the  altar  of  Hymen,  Ked2ie  had  publicly  vowed  to  love, 


honor,  and  cherish  under  all  circumstances.  It  was  like 
swearing  to  walk  in  air  or  water  as  well  as  on  earth. 
The  futile  old  oath  to  "obey"  had  been  omitted  as  a 
perjury  enforced. 

Kedzie  Thropp,  who  had  come  to  New  York  only  a  few 
months  before,  had  done  one  more  impulsive  thing.  First 
she  had  run  away  from  her  parents.  Now  she  had  run 
away  from  herself.  She  had  loved  New  York  first.  Now 
she  was  infatuated  with  Tommie  Gilfoyle.  He  was  as 
complex  and  mysterious  a  city  as  Manhattan.  She  would 
be  as  long  in  reaching  the  heart  of  him. 

There  had  been  no  bridesmaids  to  give  the  scene  social 
grace,  no  music  or  flowers  to  give  it  poetry,  no  minister 
to  give  it  an  odor  of  sanctity.  It  was  marriage  in  its  cold, 
business-like  actuality,  without  hypnotism,  superstition, 
or  false  pretense.  Small  wonder  that  Kedzie  had  hardly 
left  the  marriage-room  before  she  felt  that  she  was  not 
married  at  all.  The  vaccination  had  not  taken.  She 
was  not  one  with  Gilfoyle.  And  yet  she  must  pretend 
that  she  was.  She  must  act  as  if  they  were  one  soul,  one 
flesh;  must  share  his  tenement,  his  food,  his  joys  and 
anxieties.  Of  these  last  there  promised  to  be  no  famine. 

Gilfoyle  was  in  a  panic  about  his  office.  He  told  Kedzie 
to  devote  the  morning  to  looking  up  some  place  to  live. 
He  would  join  her  at  luncheon.  He  fidgeted  while  they 
waited  for  the  elevator,  Kedzie  staring  at  her  ring  with 
the  same  curious  smile  as  the  other  girl. 


CHAPTER  III 

HTHEY  rode  up-town  in  a  Subway  express  to  Forty- 
1  second  Street.  Their  first  business  treaty  had  to  be 
drawn  up  in  the  crowd. 

"How  much  do  you  want  to  pay  for  the  flat,  honey?'" 
said  Kedzie. 

Gilfoyle  was  startled.  Already  the  money-snake  was 
in  their  Eden .  And  she  asked  him  how  much  he ' '  wanted ' ' 
to  pay !  It  was  only  a  form  of  speech,  but  it  grated  on  him. 

"I  haven't  time  to  figure  it  out,"  he  fretted.  "I  get 
twenty-five  dollars  a  week — darling.  That's  a  hundred  a 
month — dear."  His  pet  names  came  afterward,  mere 
trailers.  "Out  of  that  we've  got  to  get  something  to  eat 
and  to  wear,  and  there'll  be  street-car  fare  to  pay  and — 
tooth-powder  to  buy,  and  we'll  want  something  for  theater 
tickets,  and —  He  was  aghast  at  the  multitude  of  things 
married  people  need.  He  added,  "And  we  ought  to  save 
a  little,  I  suppose." 

"I  suppose  so,"  said  Kedzie,  who  was  as  much  taken 
aback  by  the  mention  of  economy  at  such  a  time  as  he 
was  by  the  mention  of  expenditure.  But  she  rose  bravely 
to  the  responsibility:  " I'll  do  the  best  I  can,  and  we'll  be 
so  cozy — ooh!" 

Kedzie  was  used  to  small  figures.  He  put  into  her 
hand  all  the  cash  he  had  with  him,  which  was  all  he  had  on 
earth — forty-two  dollars.  He  borrowed  back  the  two 
dollars.  Kedzie  had  her  own  money,  about  forty  more 
dollars.  This,  with  twenty-five  dollars  a  week,  seemed  big 
enough  to  her  to  keep  them  in  luxury.  They  parted  at 
the  Grand  Central  Terminal  with  looks  of  devoted  agony. 

139 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

She  set  out  at  once  to  look  at  flats  and  to  visit  furniture- 
stores.  She  bought  a  Herald  and  read  the  numberless 
advertisements.  Something  was  the  matter  everywhere. 
She  had  gone  far  and  found  nothing  but  discouragement 
when  the  luncheon  hour  arrived. 

Humble  as  her  ideas  were,  they  rebelled  at  what  she 
and  her  bridegroom  would  have  to  accept  for  their  home. 
She  had  always  dreamed  of  marrying  a  beautiful  man  with 
a  million  dollars  and  a  steam  yacht.  She  was  to  have  been 
married  by  a  swagger  parson,  in  a  swagger  church,  and 
to  have  gone  on  a  long  voyage  somewhere,  and  come  back 
at  last  to  a  castle  on  Fifth  Avenue.  She  had  lost  the 
parson;  the  voyage  was  not  to  be  thought  of;  and  the 
castle  was  not  even  in  the  air. 

She  looked  at  one  or  two  expensive  apartments,  just 
to  see  what  real  apartments  could  be  like.  They  stunned 
her  with  their  splendors,  their  liveried  outguards,  their 
elevators  clanking  like  caparisoned  chariot-horses,  their 
conveniences,  their  rentals — six  or  eight  thousand  dollars 
a  year,  unfurnished! — six  or  seven  times  her  husband's 
whole  annual  earnings.  They  were  beyond  the  folly  of 
a  dream. 

She  would  have  to  be  content  with  what  one  could  rent 
furnished  for  twenty-five  dollars  a  month.  She  would 
have  to  be  her  own  hired  girl.  She  would  have  to  toil 
in  a  few  cells  of  a  beehive  on  a  side-street.  She  would  be 
chauffeuse  to  a  gas-stove  only. 

She  went  to  the  luncheon  tryst  with  a  load  of  fore- 
bodings, but  Gilfoyle  did  not  appear.  She  heard  her 
name  paged  by  a  corridor-crier  and  was  called  to  the 
telephone,  where  her  husband's  voice  told  her  that  there 
was  a  big  upset  at  the  office  and  he  dared  not  leave.  He 
forgot  to  be  tender  in  his  endearments,  and  he  forgot 
to  explain  to  her  that  he  was  talking  in  a  crowded  office 
with  an  impatient  boss  waiting  for  him  and  a  telephone- 
girl  probably  listening  in. 

Kedzie  lunched  alone,  already  a  business  man's  wife. 
140 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

She  scoured  the  town  all  afternoon,  and  at  last,  in  despera- 
tion, took  the  furnished  flat  she  happened  to  be  in  when 
she  could  go  no  farther.  She  had  to  sign  a  year's  lease, 
and  pay  twenty-five  dollars  in  advance. 

They  would  live  a  condensed  life  there.  Even  the  hall 
was  shared  with  another  family.  The  secrets  were  also 
to  be  shared,  evidently,  for  Kedzie  could  hear  all  that 
went  on  in  the  other  home — all,  all! 

But  by  this  time  she  was  so  tired  that  any  cranny 
would  have  been  welcome.  She  was  even  wearier  than 
she  had  been  when  she  occupied  the  outdoor  apartment 
under  the  park  bench  where  she  spent  her  second  night  in 
New  York.  She  called  that  an  "aparkment"  and  liked 
the  pun  so  well  that  she  longed  to  tell  her  husband.  But 
that  would  have  compelled  the  telling  of  her  real  name, 
and  she  did  not  know  him  well  enough  for  that  yet. 
She  found  that  she  did  not  know  him  well  enough  yet  for 
an  increasing  number  of  things.  She  began  to  be  afraid 
to  have  him  come  home.  What  would  he  be  like  as  a 
husband?  What  would  she  be  like  as  a  wife?  Those 
are  all-important  facts  that  one  is  permitted  to  learn  after 
the  vows  of  perfection  are  sealed. 

When  Kedzie  had  rested  awhile  she  grew  braver  and 
lonelier.  She  would  welcome  almost  any  husband  for 
companionship's  sake.  She  resolved  to  have  Tom's  din- 
ner ready  for  him.  She  dragged  herself  down  the  stairs 
and  up  the  hill  to  the  grocer's  and  the  butcher's  and 
bought  the  raw  material  for  dinner  and  breakfast. 

She  telephoned  Gilfoyle  at  his  office,  gave  him  the 
address  and  invited  him  to  dine  with  "Mrs.  Gilfoyle." 
She  chuckled  over  the  romance  of  it,  but  he  was  harrowed 
with  office  troubles.  Her  ardor  was  a  trifle  dampened 
by  his  voice,  but  she  found  new  thrills  in  the  gas-stove, 
a  most  dramatic  instrument  to  play.  It  frightened  her 
with  every  manifestation.  She  turned  the  wrong  handles 
and  got  bad  odors  from  it,  and  explosions.  She  burned 
her  fingers  and  the  chops. 

141 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

She  stared  in  dismay  at  the  charred  first  banquet  and 
then  marched  her  weary  feet  down  the  stairs  again  and 
up  the  hill  again  to  a  delicatessen  shop.  She  had  pre- 
viously learned  the  fatal  ease  of  the  ready-made  meals 
they  vend  at  such  places,  and  she  compiled  her  first  menu 
there. 

When  Gilfoyle  came  down  the  street  and  up  the  steps 
into  his  new  home  and  into  her  arms  he  tried  to  lay  off 
care  for  a  while.  But  he  could  not  hide  his  anxiety — 
and  his  ecstasy  was  half  an  ecstasy  of  dread. 

He  did  not  like  the  shabby,  showy  furniture  the  landlord 
had  selected.  But  the  warmed-up  dinner  amazed  him.  He 
had  not  imagined  Kedzie  so  scholarly  a  cook.  She  dared 
not  tell  him  that  she  had  cheated.  He  found  her  wonder- 
fully refreshing  after  a  day  of  office  toil  and  told  her  how 
happy  they  would  be,  and  she  said,  "You  bet."  Kedzie 
cleared  the  table  by  scooping  up  all  the  dishes  and  dumping 
them  into  a  big  pan  and  turning  the  hot  water  into  it 
with  a  cake  of  soap.  Then  she  retreated  to  the  wabbly 
divan  in  the  living-room. 

Gilfoyle  went  over  to  Kedzie  like  a  lonely  hound;  and 
she  laced  still  tighter  the  arms  that  encircled  her.  They 
told  each  other  that  they  were  all  they  had  in  the  world, 
and  they  forgot  the  outside  world  for  the  world  within 
themselves.  But  the  evening  was  maliciously  hot  and 
muggy;  it  was  going  to  rain  in  a  day  or  so.  That  divan 
would  hardly  support  two,  and  there  was  no  comfort  in 
sitting  close;  it  merely  added  two  furnaces  together. 

Clamor  rose  in  the  adjoining  apartment.  Their  neigh- 
bors had  children,  and  the  children  did  not  want  to  go  to 
bed.  The  parents  nagged  the  children  and  each  other. 
The  wrangle  was  insufferable.  And  the  idea  came  to 
Kedzie  and  Gilfoyle  that  children  were  one  of  the  liabilities 
of  their  own  marriage.  They  were  afraid  of  each  other, 
now,  as  well  as  of  the  world.  If  only  they  had  not  been 
in  such  haste  to  be  married!  If  only  they  could  recall 
those  hasty  words! 

142 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Gilfoyle  put  out  the  lights — "because  they  draw  the 
insects,"  he  said,  but  Kedzie  thought  that  he  was  begin- 
ning to  economize.  He  was.  Across  the  street  they 
could  see  other  heat-victims  miserably  preparing  for  the 
night.  They  were  careless  of  appearances. 

In  the  back  of  the  parlor  was  a  window  opening  into  a 
narrow  air-shaft.  The  one  bedroom's  one  window  opened 
on  the  same  cleft.  If  the  curtain  were  not  kept  down 
the  neighbors  across  the  area  could  see  and  be  seen.  If 
the  window  were  left  open  they  could  be  heard;  and  when 
the  curtain  flapped  in  the  occasional  little  puffs  of  hot  air, 
it  gave  brief  glimpses  of  family  life  next  door.  That 
family  had  a  squalling  child,  too.  Somewhere  above,  a 
rickety  phonograph  was  at  work;  and  somewhere  below, 
a  piano  was  being  mauled;  and  somewhere  else  a  ukelele, 
was  being  thumped  and  a  doleful  singer  was  snarling  "The; 
Beach  at  Waikiki."  This  racket  was  their  only  epitha-. 
lamium.  It  was  more  like  the  "chivaree"  with  which 
ironic  crowds  tormented  bridal  couples  back  in  Nim- 
rim,  Mo. 

Gilfoyle  was  poet  enough  to  enjoy  a  little  extra  doldrums 
at  what  might  have  made  a  longshoreman  peevish.  He 
mopped  sweat  and  fanned  himself  with  a  newspaper  till 
he  grew  frantic.  He  flung  down  the  paper  and  rose  with  a 
yawn. 

"Well,  this  is  one  helluva  honeymoon.  I'm  going  to 
crawl  into  the  oven  and  fry." 

Kedzie  sat  alone  in  the  dark  parlor  a  long  while  >  She 
was  cold  now.  She  had  danced  Greek  dances  in  public, 
but  she  blushed  in  the  dark  as  she  loitered  over  her  shoe- 
laces. She  was  so  forlorn  and  so  disappointed  with  life 
that  tears  would  have  been  bliss. 

Somebody  on  that  populous,  mysterious  air-shaft  kept 
a  parrot.  It  woke  Kedzie  early  in  the  morning  with 
hysterical  laughter  that  pierced  the  ears  like  steel  saws. 
There  was  something  uncannily  real  but  hideously  mirth- 
less in  its  Ha-ha-ha!  It  would  gurgle  with  thick-tongued 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

idiocy:    "Polly?     Polly?     Polly  wanny  clacky?     Polly? 
Polly?" 

Kedzie  wondered  how  any  one  could  care  or  dare  to 
keep  such  a  pest.  She  wanted  to  kill  it.  She  leaned  out 
of  the  window  and  stared  up.  Somewhere  above  the  fire- 
escape  rungs  she  could  see  the  bottom  of  its  cage.  If 
only  she  had  a  gun,  how  gladly  she  would  have  blown 
Polly  to  bits. 

She  saw  a  frowsy-haired  man  in  a  nightgown  staring 
up  from  another  window  and  yelling  at  the  parrot.  She 
drew  her  head  in  hastily. 

The  idol  of  her  soul  slept  on.  The  inpouring  day 
illumined  him  to  his  disadvantage.  His  head  was  far 
back,  his  jaw  down,  his  mouth  agape.  During  the  night 
a  beard  had  crept  out  on  his  cheeks.  He  was  startlingly 
unattractive. 

Kedzie  crouched  on  the  bed  and  stared  at  him  in  wonder, 
in  a  fascination  of  disgust.  This  was  the  being  she  had 
selected  from  all  mankind  for  her  companion  through  the 
long,  long  years  to  come.  This  was  her  playmate,  partner, 
hero,  master,  financier,  bedfellow,  lifefellow.  For  him 
she  had  given  up  her  rights  to  freedom,  to  praise,  to 
chivalry,  to  individuality,  her  hopes  of  wealth,  luxury, 
flattery. 

She  glanced  about  the  room — the  pine  bureau  with  its 
imitation  stain,  broken  handles,  and  curdled  mirror,  the 
ugly  chairs,  the  gilt  radiator,  the  worn  rug,  the  bed  that 
other  wretches  had  occupied.  She  wondered  who  they 
were  and  where  they  were. 

She  remembered  Newport,  the  Noxon  home.  She 
tried  to  picture  a  bedroom  there.  She  saw  a  palace  of 
the  best  moving-picture  period.  She  remembered  the 
first  moving  picture  she  had  seen  in  New  York,  and 
contrasted  the  Anita  Adair  of  that  adventure  with  the 
Anita  Adair  of  this.  She  recalled  that  girl  locking  her 
door  against  the  swell  husband,  and  the  poor  but  honest 
lover  with  the  revolver. 

144 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Kedzie  wished  she  had  locked  her  own  door — only 
there  was  no  door,  merely  a  shoddy  portiere,  for  there  was 
not  room  to  open  a  door.  Her  old  ambitions  came  back 
to  her.  She  had  planned  to  know  rich  people  and  rebuke 
their  wicked  wiles.  One  rich  man  had  held  her  in  his 
arms,  lifted  her  out  of  the  pool.  It  was  no  less  a  man 
than  Jim  Dyckman,  and  she  had  repulsed  him. 

She  caught  a  glimpse  of  her  own  tousled  head  in  the 
mirror,  and  she  sneered  at  it.  "You  darn  fool — oh,  you 
darn  fool!" 

At  last  the  parrot  woke  Gilfoyle.  He  snorted,  bored  his 
fists  into  his  eyes,  yawned,  scratched  his  head,  stared  at 
the  unusual  furniture,  flounced  over,  saw  his  mate,  stared 
again,  grinned,  said: 

"  Why,  hello,  Anita!" 

He  put  out  his  hand  to  her.  She  wiggled  away;  he 
followed.  She  slid  to  the  floor  and  gasped: 

"Don't  touch  me!" 

"Why,  what's  the  matter,  honey?" 

' '  Huh !     What  isn't  the  matter  ? ' ' 

He  fumbled  under  the  pillow  for  his  watch,  looked  at  it, 
yawned : 

"Lord,  it's  only  five  o'clock.  Good  night!"  He  dis- 
posed himself  for  sleep  again.  The  parrot  broke  out  in 
another  horrible  Ha-ha!  He  sat  up  with  an  oath.  "I'd 
like  to  murder  the  beast." 

"Don't!     I'm  much  obliged  to  it." 

"Obliged  to  it?  You  must  be  crazy.  Good  Lord !  hear 
it  scream." 

"Well,  ain't  life  a  scream?" 

Gilfoyle  was  a  graceless  sleeper  and  a  surly  waker.  He 
forgot  that  he  was  a  bridegroom. 

He  sniffed,  yawned,  flopped,  buried  one  ear  in  the  pillow 
and  pulled  the  cover  over  the  other  and  almost  instantly 
slept.  His  head  on  the  pillow  looked  like  some  ugly, 
shaggy  vegetable.  Kedzie  wanted  to  uproot  the  object 
and  throw  it  out  of  the  window,  out  of  her  life.  That 

145 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE   EVERYTHING 

was  the  head  of  her  husband,  the  lord  and  master  of  her 
dreams! 

Dainty-minded  couples  have  separate  bedrooms.  Or- 
dinary people  accept  the  homely  phases  of  coexistence 
as  inevitable  and  therefore  unimportant.  They  grow  to 
enjoy  the  intimacy:  they  give  and  take  informality  as 
one  of  the  comforts  of  a  home.  They  see  frowsy  hair 
and  unshaven  cheeks  and  yawns  as  a  homely,  wholesome 
part  of  life  and  make  a  pleasant  indolence  of  them. 

But  Kedzie  was  in  an  unreasoning  mood.  She  had 
hoped  for  unreasonable  delights.  Marriage  had  been  a 
goal  beyond  the  horizon,  at  the  base  of  the  rainbow.  She 
had  reached  it.  The  girl  Kedzie  was  no  more.  She  was 
a  wife.  Kedzie  Thropp  and  Anita  Adair  were  now  Mrs. 
Thomas  Gilfoyle.  Her  soul  cried  out: 

"This  is  my  honeymoon!  I  am  married,  married  for- 
ever to  that  tousle-headed,  bristle-jawed,  brainless,  heart- 
less dub.  I  won't  stand  for  it.  I  won't!  I  won't!" 

She  wanted  to  outscream  the  parrot.  Its  inarticulate, 
horrible  cachinnations  voiced  her  humor  uncannily.  She 
had  to  bury  her  pouting  lips  in  her  round  young  arm  to 
keep  from  insanely  echoing  that  maniacal  Ha-ha-ha! 
That  green-and-red  philosopher  expressed  her  own  mock- 
ery of  life  and  love,  with  its  profound  and  eloquent 
Ha-ha-ha!  Oh,  ha-ha-ha!  Ee,  ha-ha-ha! 


CHAPTER  IV 

NOW,  of  course,  Kedzie  ought  to  have  been  happy. 
Millions  of  girls  of  her  age  were  waking  up  that 
morning  and  calling  themselves  wretched  because  their 
parents  or  distance  or  some  other  cause  prevented  them 
from  marrying  young  fellows  no  more  prepossessing  asleep 
than  Gilfoyle  was. 

In  Europe  that  morning  myriads  of  young  girls  tossed 
in  their  beds  and  shivered  lest  their  young  men  in  the 
trenches  might  have  been  killed  or  mangled  by  some  shell 
dropped  from  an  airship  or  sent  over  from  a  cannon  or 
shot  up  from  a  mine.  And  those  young  men,  alive  or 
dead,  looked  no  better  than  Gilfoyle,  if  as  neat. 

In  Europe  and  in  Asia,  that  morning,  there  were  young 
girls  and  nuns  and  wives  who  were  in  the  power  of  foreign 
soldiers  whose  language  they  could  not  speak  but  could 
understand  all  too  well — poor,  ruined  victims  of  the  tidal 
waves  of  battle.  There  were  wives,  young  and  old,  who 
had  got  their  husbands  back  from  war  blind,  crippled, 
foolish,  petulant.  They  had  left  part  of  their  souls  on 
the  field  with  their  blood. 

It  was  a  time  when  it  seemed  that  nobody  had  a  right 
to  be  unhappy  who  had  life,  health,  shelter,  and  food. 
Yet  America  was  perhaps  as  discontented  as  Europe. 

Kedzie  had  reason  enough  to  make  peace  with  life. 
Gilfoyle  was  as  valuable  a  citizen  as  she.  She  might 
have  helped  to  make  him  a  good  business  man  or  a  genuine 
poet.  What  is  poetry,  anyway,  but  the  skilful  advertise- 
ment of  emotions?  She  might  at  least  have  made  of 
Gilfoyle  that  all-important  element  of  the  Republic,  a 

147 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

respectable,  amiable,  ordinary  man,  perhaps  the  father 
of  children  who  would  be  of  value,  even  of  glory,  to  the 
world. 

There  was  romance  enough  in  their  wedding.  Others 
of  the  couples  who  had  bought  licenses  that  day  were 
rapturous  in  yet  cheaper  tenements,  greeting  the  new  day 
with  laughter  and  kisses  and  ambition  to  earn  and  to  save, 
to  breed  and  grow  old  well. 

But  to  be  content  with  what  or  whom  she  had,  Kedzie 
would  have  had  to  be  somebody  else  besides  Kedzie; 
and  then  Gilfoyle  would  not  perhaps  have  met  her  or 
married  her.  Some  man  in  Nimrim,  Mo.,  would  have 
wed  the  little  stay-at-home. 

Kedzie,  the  pretty  fool,  apparently  fancied  that  she 
would  have  been  happy  if  Gilfoyle  had  been  a  handsomer 
sleeper,  and  the  apartment  a  handsomer  apartment,  and 
the  bank-account  an  inexhaustible  fountain  of  gold. 

But  would  she  have  been?  Peter  Cheever  was  as  hand- 
some as  a  man  dares  to  be,  awake  or  asleep;  he  had  vast 
quantities  of  money,  and  he  was  generous  with  it.  But 
Zada  L'Etoile  was  not  happy.  She  dwelt  in  an  apartment 
that  would  have  overwhelmed  Kedzie  by  the  depth  of  its 
velvets  and  the  height  of  its  colors. 

Yet .  Zada  was  crying  this  very  morning — crying  like 
mad  because  while  she  had  Cheever  she  had  no  marriage 
license.  She  tore  her  hair  and  bit  it,  and  peeled  diamonds 
off  her  fingers  and  threw  them  at  the  mirror  like  pebbles, 
and  sopped  up  her  tears  with  point-lace  handkerchiefs 
and  hurled  those  to  the  floor — then  hurled  herself  after 
them.  She  was  a  tremendous  weeper,  Zada. 

And  in  Newport  there  was  a  woman  who  had  a  marriage 
license  but  no  husband.  She  slept  in  a  room  too  beautiful 
for  Kedzie  to  have  liked.  She  did  not  know  enough  to 
like  it.  She  would  have  found  it  cold.  Charity  Cheever 
found  it  cold,  but  she  slept  at  last,  though  the  salt  wind 
blowing  in  from  the  sea  tormented  the  light  curtains  and 
plucked  at  the  curls  about  Charity's  face.  There  was  salt 

148 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

in  the  air,  and  her  eyelashes  were  still  wet  with  tears. 
She  was  crying  in  her  sleep,  for  loneliness. 

Kedzie  thought  her  room  was  small,  but  it  was  nearly 
as  big  as  the  bedroom  where  Jim  Dyckman  had  slept.  He 
had  a  bigger  room,  but  he  had  given  it  to  his  father  and 
mother,  who  had  come  to  Newport  with  him.  They  were 
a  stodgy  old  couple  enough  now,  and  snoring  idyllically 
in  duet  after  a  life  of  storms  and  tears  and  discontents  in 
spite  of  wealth. 

Jim's  room  was  big  for  a  yacht,  but  the  yacht  was 
narrow,  built  for  speed.  Thirty-six  miles  an  hour  its 
turbines  could  shoot  it  through  the  sea.  It  had  to 
be  narrow.  We  can't  have  everything — especially  on 
yachts. 

Jim  was  barefoot,  standing  in  his  pajamas  at  a  port-hole 
and  trying  to  see  the  Noxon  home,  imagining  Charity 
there.  He  was  denied  her  presence  and  was  as  miserable 
as  any  waif  in  a  poor  farm  attic.  Money  seemed  to  make 
no  visible  difference  in  his  despair. 

If  he  thought  of  Kedzie  at  all,  he  dismissed  her  as  a 
trifling  memory.  He  wanted  Charity,  who  did  not  want 
him.  Charity  had  Cheever,  who  did  not  want  her. 
Kedzie  had  Gilfoyle,  and  did  not  want  him.  It  looked  as 
if  the  old  jingle  ought  to  be  changed  from  "Finders 
keepers,  losers  weepers"  to  "Losers  keepers,  finders 
weepers." 

The  day  after  Jim  Dyckman  pulled  Kedzie  out  of  the 
water  he  made  a  desperate  effort  to  convince  himself  that 
he  could  be  happy  without  the  forbidden  Charity  Coe. 

He  breakfasted  and  played  tennis,  then  swam  at 
Bailey's  Beach.  Beauties  of  every  type  and  every  con- 
science were  there — pale,  slim  ash  blondes  with  legs  like 
banister-spindles,  and  swarthy,  slender  brunettes  of  the 
same  Sheraton  furniture.  There  were  brunettes  of  gen- 
erous ovals,  and  blondes  of  heroic  rotundities,  and  every 
scheme  of  shape  between.  Minds  were  equally  diver- 
sified— maternal  young  girls  and  wicked  old  ladies, 

149 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

hilarious  and  sinister,  intellectual  and  athletic,  bookish 
and  horsy,  a  woman  of  a  sort  for  every  mood. 

And  Jim  Dyckman  was  so  wealthy  and  so  simple  and 
so  likable  and  important  that  it  seemed  nobody  would 
refuse  to  accept  him.  But  he  wanted  Charity. 

Later  in  the  afternoon  he  gave  up  the  effort  to  snub 
her  and  went  to  the  Noxon  home.  It  was  about  the  hour 
when  Kedzie  in  her  new  flat  had  been  burning  her  fingers 
at  the  gas-stove.  Jim  Dyckman  was  preparing  to  burn 
his  fingers  at  the  shrine  of  Mrs.  Cheever. 

He  rang  the  bell  and  asked  for  Mrs.  Noxon,  though 
her  motor  was  waiting  at  the  door,  as  he  was  glad  to  note. 
Mrs.  Noxon  came  down  with  her  hat  on  and  her  gloves 
going  on.  She  pinched  Dyckman's  cheek  and  kissed  him 
and  said: 

"  It's  sweet  of  you,  Jimmie,  to  call  on  an  old  crone  like 
me,  and  so  promptly.  She'll  be  down  in  a  minute.  But 
you  must  be  on  your  good  behavior,  Jim,  for  they're 
talking  about  you,  you  know.  They're  bracketing  your 
name  with  Charity's." 

"The  dirty  beasts !     I'll—-" 

"You  can't,  Jim.  But  you  can  behave.  Cheer  her  up 
a  little.  She's  blue  about  that  dog  of  a  Cheever.  I've 
got  to  go  and  turn  over  the  money  we  earned  yesterday. 
Quite  a  tidy  sum,  but  I'll  never  give  another  damned  show 
as  long  as  I  live." 

She  left,  and  by  and  by  Charity  Coe  drifted  in,  bringing 
strange  contentment  with  her.  She  greeted  Jim  with  a 
weary  cordiality.  He  took  her  hand  and  kissed  it  and 
laid  his  other  hand  over  it  as  usual.  She  put  her  other 
hand  on  top  of  his  and  patted  it — then  withdrew  her 
slender  fingers  and  sat  down. 

They  glanced  at  each  other  and  sighed.  Jim  was 
miserably  informed  now  that  he  had  made  the  angelic 
Charity  Coe  a  theme  for  gossip.  He  felt  guilty — irritat- 
edly  guilty,  because  he  had  the  name  without  the  game. 

Charity  Coe  was  in  a  dull  mood.  She  was  in  a  love 

150 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

lethargy.  Her  mind  was  trying  to  persuade  her  heart  that 
her  devotion  to  Peter  Cheever  was  a  wasted  lealty,  but  her 
heart  would  not  be  convinced,  though  it  began  to  be 
afraid.  She  was  as  a  watcher  who  sits  in  the  next  room 
to  one  who  is  dying  slowly  and  quietly.  She  could  neither 
lose  hope  nor  use  it. 

Jim  and  Charity  sat  brooding  for  a  long  while.  He  had 
outstretched  himself  on  a  sumptuous  divan.  She  was 
seated  on  a  carved  chair,  leaning  against  the  tall  back  of  it 
like  a  figure  in  high  relief.  About  them  the  great  room 
brooded  colossally. 

Gilfoyle  would  have  hated  Charity  and  Jim  as  perfect 
examples  of  the  idle  rich,  too  stupid  to  work,  too  pam- 
pered to  be  worthy  of  sympathy.  But  whether  these  two 
had  a  right  to  suffer  or  not,  suffer  they  did. 

The  mansion  was  quiet.  The  other  house-guests  were 
motoring  or  darting  about  the  twilit  tennis-court  or 
trading  in  the  gossip-exchange  at  the  Casino.  Jim  and 
Charity  were  marooned  in  a  sleeping  castle. 

At  length  Jim  broke  forth,  "For  God's  sake,  sing." 

Charity  laughed  a  little  and  said,  "All  right — anything 
to  make  you  talk." 

She  went  to  the  piano  and  shifted  the  music.  There 
were  dozens  of  songs  about  roses.  She  dropped  to  the 
bench  and  began  to  play  and  croon  Edward  Carpenter's 
luscious  music  to  Waller's  old  poem,  "Go,  Lovely  Rose." 

Jim  began  to  talk  almost  at  once.  Charity  went  on 
singing,  smiling  a  little  at  the  familiar  experience  of  being 
asked  to  sing  only  to  be  talked  over.  Jim  grew  garrulous 
as  he  read  across  her  shoulder  with  characteristic  im- 
politeness. 

"  Tell  her  that  wastes  her  time  and  me,"  he  quoted;  then 
he  groaned:  "That's  you  and  me,  Charity  Coe.  But 
you're  wasting  yourself  most  of  all." 

He  bent  closer  to  peek  at  the  name  of  the  author. 
"Who's  this  feller  Waller,  who  knows  so  much?" 

"Hush  and  listen,"  she  said,  and  hummed  the  song 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

through.  It  made  a  new  and  deep  impression  on  her  in 
that  humor.  She  felt  that  she  had  wasted  the  rosiness 
of  her  own  life.  Girlhood  was  gone;  youth  was  gone; 
carefreedom  was  gone.  Like  petals  they  had  fallen  from 
the  core  of  her  soul.  The  words  of  the  lyric  stabbed  her: 

Then  die  that  she 

The  common  fate  of  all  things  rare 
May  read  in  thee. 

How  small  a  part  of  time  they  share 

That  are  so  sweet  and  fair. 

Her  fingers  slipped  from  the  keys  and,  as  it  were,  died 
in  her  lap.  Jim  Dyckman  understood  a  woman  for  once, 
and  in  a  gush  of  pity  for  her  and  of  resentment  for  her 
disprized  preciousness  caught  at  her  to  embrace  her. 
Her  hands  came  to  life.  The  wifely  instinct  leaped  to  the 
fore.  She  struck  and  wrenched  and  drove  him  off.  She 
was  panting  with  wrath. 

"What  a  rotten  thing  to  do!  Go  away  and  don't  come 
near  me  again.  I'm  ashamed  of  you." 

"Me,  too,"  he  snarled. 


CHAPTER  V 

JIM  slunk  out  and  slunk  down  the  marble  steps  and 
down  the  winding  walk  and  through  the  monstrous 
gate  into  the  highway  along  the  sea,  enraged  at  himself 
and  at  Charity  and  at  Peter  Cheever.  If  he  had  met 
Cheever  he  would  have  picked  him  up  and  flung  him  over 
the  sea-wall.  But  there  was  little  danger  of  Peter 
Cheever's  being  found  so  near  his  wife. 

"  Tell  her  that  wastes  her  time  and  me,"  kept  running 
through  Jim's  head.  He  was  furious  at  Charity  for  wast- 
ing so  much  of  him.  He  had  followed  her  about  and 
moped  at  her  closed  door  like  a  stray  dog.  And  she  had 
never  even  thrown  him  a  bone. 

A  wave  ran  up  on  the  beach  and  seemed  to  try  to 
embrace  the  earth,  possess  it.  But  it  fell  away  baffled. 
Over  its  subsiding  pother  sprang  a  new  wave  with  the 
same  bosomful  of  desire  and  the  same  frantic  clutching 
here  and  there — the  same  rebuff,  the  same  destruction 
under  the  surge  of  the  next  and  the  next.  The  descending 
night  gave  a  strange  pathos  to  the  eternal  vanity. 

Jim  Dyckman  stood  and  faced  the  ocean.  Once  more 
he  discovered  that  life  was  too  much  for  him  to  understand. 
He  was  ashamed  of  himself  for  his  vain  endeavor  to  en- 
velop Charity  Coe  and  absorb  her  into  the  deeps  of  his 
love.  He  was  most  ashamed  because  he  had  failed  and 
must  slither  back  into  the  undertow  with  the  many  other 
men  whom  Charity  had  refused  to  love. 

He  was  ashamed  of  Charity  Coe,  too,  for  squandering 
her  prime  and  her  pride.  He  was  enraged  at  her  blindness 
to  Pete  Cheever's  duplicity  or  her  complacency  with  it. 

iS3 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

He  hated  Charity  for  a  while — nearly.  At  any  rate  he 
was  ashamed  of  her,  ashamed  of  the  world,  in  a  rebel 
mood. 

As  he  stood  wind-blown  and  spray-flogged  and  glad 
to  be  beaten,  a  shabby  old  carriage  went  by.  It  was 
piled  to  overflowing  with  some  of  Miss  Silsby's  girls  taking 
a  seeing-Newport  tour  on  the  cheap. 

The  driver  was,  or  said  he  had  been  in  his  time,  coach- 
man to  some  of  the  oldest  families.  He  ventured  their 
names  with  familiarity  and  knew  their  houses  by  heart. 
He  told  quaint  stories  of  their  ways,  how  old  Mrs.  Noxon 
once  swore  down  a  mutinous  stableman,  how  Miss  Wos- 
som  ran  away  with  her  coachman.  There  was  something 
finely  old-fashioned  and  conservative  about  that.  A  new- 
rich  would  have  run  away  with  a  chauffeur. 

The  driver  knew  Jim  Dyckman's  back  and  pointed  him 
out.  The  girls  laughed,  remembering  Kedzie's  encounter 
with  him.  They  laughed  so  loud  that  Dyckman  turned, 
startled  by  the  racket.  But  the  carriage  rolled  them 
away  and  he  did  not  hear  them  wondering  what  had 
become  of  Kedzie.  The  gloaming  saddened  them,  and 
they  felt  very  sorry  for  her.  But  Jim  Dyckman  gave  her 
no  thought. 

He  was  tearing  apart  his  emotions  toward  Charity  and 
resolving  that  he  must  never  see  her  again.  In  the 
analytical  chemistry  of  the  soul  he  found  that  this  resolu- 
tion was  three  parts  hopelessness  of  winning  her,  three 
parts  a  decent  sense  of  the  wickedness  of  courting  an- 
other man's  woman,  three  parts  resentment  at  her  for 
treating  him  properly,  and  one  part  a  feeling  that  he  would 
make  himself  most  valuable  to  her  by  staying  away. 

Never  a  homeless  dog  slinking  through  an  alley  in 
search  of  a  sidelong  ash-barrel  to  sleep  in  felt  more  poverty- 
stricken,  woebegone,  than  Jim  Dyckman.  He  moped 
along  the  stately  road,  as  much  afraid  of  his  future  as 
Kedzie  had  been,  trudging  the  same  highway.  She  had 
wondered  if  board  and  lodging  would  fail  her.  This  was 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

not  Jim  Dyckman's  fear,  but  his  own  was  as  great,  for 
everybody  was  some  dreadful  elbow-companion. 

Lucian  showed  Jupiter  himself  cowering  on  his  throne 
in  the  sky  and  twiddling  his  thunderbolt  with  trembling 
hand  as  he  wondered  what  the  fates  held  in  store  for  him, 
and  saw  on  earth  the  increasing  impudence  of  the  skeptics. 

So  Jim  Dyckman,  unconscious  that  he  was  following  in 
Kedzie's  footsteps,  walked  miserably  on  his  way.  He  had 
no  place  to  go  to  but  the  finest  yacht  in  the  harbor.  He 
had  no  money  to  depend  on  but  a  few  millions  of  his  own 
and  the  Pelion  plus  Ossa  fortunes  of  his  father  and 
mother  and  their  relatives — a  mere  sierra  of  gold  moun- 
tains. 

He  drifted  down  to  the  landing-place  and  went  out  to 
his  yacht  in  a  hackney  launch.  He  was  received  at  her 
snowy  sides  as  if  he  were  the  emperor  of  somewhere  come 
to  visit  one  of  his  rear  admirals.  He  went  up  the  steps 
as  if  he  were  a  school-boy  caught  playing  hooky  and 
going  up-stairs  to  play  the  bass  drum  to  his  mother's 
slipper. 

His  mother  was  on  the  shade-deck,  reclining.  The  big 
white  wicker  lounge  looked  as  if  a  small  avalanche  had 
fallen  on  it.  From  the  upturned  points  of  her  white 
shoes  back  to  her  white  hair  she  was  a  study  in  foreshorten- 
ing that  would  have  interested  a  draftsman. 

Spread  out  on  a  huge  wicker  arm-chair  sat  Jim's  father, 
also  all  white,  except  for  his  big  pink  hands  and  his  big 
pink  face.  It  seemed  that  he  ought  to  have  been  smoking 
a  white  cigar.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  had  sat  so  still 
that  half  the  weed  was  ash. 

When  the  two  moved  to  greet  Jim  there  was  a  mighty 
creaking  of  wicker.  There  was  another  when  Jim  spilled 
his  own  great  weight  into  a  chair.  A  steward  in  white 
raised  his  eyebrows  inquiringly  and  Jim  nodded  the 
eighth  of  an  inch.  It  was  the  equivalent  of  ordering  a 
drink. 

Dyckman  senior  turned  to  Dyckman  seniora  and  said : 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Enter  Hamlet  in  the  graveyard!  Where's  the  skull,  my 
boy,  where's  the  skull?" 

"Let  the  child  alone,"  Mrs.  Dyckman  protested.  "It's 
too  hot  for  fooling.  You  might  kiss  your  poor  mother, 
though.  No,  don't  get  up,  just  throw  me  one." 

Jim  rose  heavily,  went  to  her,  bent  far  down,  kissed 
her,  and  would  have  risen  again,  but  her  big  arms  encom- 
passed his  neck  and  held  him,  uncomfortably,  till  he  knelt 
by  her  side  and  laid  his  head  on  her  bosom. 

He  felt  exceedingly  foolish,  but  nearer  to  comfort  than 
he  had  been  for  a  long  while.  He  wished  that  he  might  be 
a*  boy  again  in  his  mother's  arms  and  be  altogether 
content  and  carefree  as  he  had  been  there.  As  if  children 
were  content  and  carefree!  Great  Heavens!  do  they  not 
begin  to  squirm  and  kick  before  they  are  born? 

Mrs.  Dyckman  was  suffocated  a  trifle  by  his  weight  and 
her  own  and  her  corsets,  but  her  heart  ached  for  him  some- 
where down  deep  and  she  whispered: 

"Can't  he  tell  his  mother  what  he  wants?  Maybe  she 
can  get  it  for  him." 

He  laughed  bitterly  and  extricated  himself  from  her 
clasp,  patted  her  fat  .arm,  and  turned  away.  His  father 
jealously  seized  his  sleeve. 

"Anything  serious,  old  man?     You  know  I'm  here." 

Jim  squeezed  his  father's  hand  and  shook  his  head  and 
turned  to  the  drink  which  had  arrived.  He  took  it  from 
the  tray  to  his  chair  and  sat  meditating  Newport  across 
the  top  of  his  glass.  Between  the  rail  of  the  deck  and  the 
edge  of  the  awning  he  saw  a  long  slice  of  it.  It  was  vanity 
and  emptiness  to  him.  He  spoke  at  length. 

"Fact  is,  folks,  I've  got  to  go  back  to  New  York  or 
somewhere." 

"Good  Lord!"  his  father  said.  "I'm  all  mixed  up  in  a 
golf  tournament.  I  think  I've  got  a  chance  to  lick  the 
boots  off  old  Wainwright." 

"Oh  dear!"  sighed  Mrs.  Dyckman,  "there's  to  be  the 
most  interesting  lecture  by  that  Hindu  poet.  And  it's  so 

156 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

much  more  comfortable  here  than  ashore.  This  boat  is 
the  coziest  you've  ever  had." 

"Stay  here,  darling,"  said  Jim.  "I'll  make  you  a 
present  of  her." 

"Oh,  that's  glorious,"  said  Mrs.  Dyckman.  "I've 
never  had  a  yacht  of  my  own.  It's  a  shame  to  take 
it  from  you,  but  you  can  get  another.  And  of  course 
you'll  always  be  welcome  here — which  is  more  than  a 
certain  other  big  Dyckman  will  be  if  he  doesn't  look 
sharp." 

"For  the  Lord's  sake,  Jim,  don't  give  it  to  her.  She's 
the  meanest  old  miser  about  her  own  things."  Dyckman 
senior  pushed  his  chair  back  against  the  rail. 

"Watch  out!"  Mrs.  Dyckman  gasped.  "You're  scrap- 
ing the  paint  off  my  yacht." 

Jim  rose  again.  "I've  just  about  time  to  make  the 
last  train  for  the  day,"  he  said. 

His  mother  sat  up  and  clutched  at  his  hand.  "Can't 
I  help  you,  honey?  Please  let  me!  What  is  the  matter?" 

"The  matter  is  I'm  a  lunkhead  and  Newport  bores  me 
stiff.  That's  all.  Don't  worry.  I'll  go  get  the  packing 
started." 

He  went  along  the  deck,  and  his  parents  helplessly 
craned  their  necks  after  him.  His  father  groaned.  Jim 
had  "everything."  There  was  nothing  to  get  for  him, 
no  toy  to  buy  to  divert  him  with. 

"He  wants  a  new  toy,  and  he  doesn't  know  what  it  is," 
said  the  old  man. 

But  Jim  wanted  an  old  toy  on  a  shelf  too  high  for  his 
reach.  He  ran  away  from  the  sight  of  it. 

And  Dyckman  was  fleeing  to  Charity's  next  resting- 
place,  after  all,  for  she  also  returned  in  a  few  days  to 
New  York.  She  was  restive  under  the  goad  to  return  to 
France.  She  repented  her  selfish  neglect  of  the  children 
of  all  ages  she  had  adopted  abroad.  One  thing  held  her 
back — the  dread  of  putting  the  ocean  again  between  her 
and  her  husband. 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

She  thought  it  small  of  her  to  leave  so  many  heroes  to 
suffer  without  her  ministrations,  in  order  that  she  might 
prevent  one  non-hero  from  having  too  good  a  time  without 
her  ministrations.  But  womankind  has  never  been  en- 
couraged to  adopt  the  policy  of  the  greatest  good  to  the 
greatest  number.  Hardly! 

Charity  was  conscience-smitten,  however,  and  she  cast 
about  for  a  way  to  absolve  herself.  Money  is  the  old 
and  ever-reliable  way  of  paying  debts  physical,  moral, 
and  religious.  Charity  determined  to  arrange  some  big 
fete  to  bring  in  a  heap  of  money  for  the  wounded  of 
France,  the  blind  fathers,  and  the  fatherless  children. 

Everybody  was  giving  entertainments  at  this  time  in 
behalf  of  some  school  of  victims  of  the  war.  The  only 
excuse  for  amusements  in  America  seemed  to  be  that  the 
profits  went  to  the  belligerents  in  one  way  or  another. 

Charity  was  distressed  by  the  need  of  an  oddity,  a 
novel  note  which  should  make  itself  heard  among  the 
clamors  for  Belgian  relief,  for  Polish  relief,  for  Armenian 
succor,  for  German,  French,  Italian,  Russian  widows  and 
orphans. 

Charity's  secretary,  Miss  Gurdon,  made  dozens  of  sug- 
gestions, but  none  of  them  was  big  enough  to  interest 
Charity.  One  day  a  card  came  up  to  her  with  a  letter  of 
introduction  from  Mrs.  Noxon : 

CHARITY  DEAR, — This  will  acquaint  you  with  a  very  clever 
girl,  Miss  Grace  Havender.  Her  mother  was  a  school  friend 
of  mine.  Miss  Havender  arranges  to  have  moving  pictures 
taken  of  people.  They  are  ever  so  much  quainter  than  stupid 
still-life  pictures.  Posterity  ought  to  see  you  with  your  poor 
wounded  soldiers,  but  meanwhile  we  really  should  have  a  chance 
to  perpetuate  you  as  you  are.  You  are  always  on  the  go, 
and  an  ordinary  picture  does  not  represent  you. 

Anyway,  you  will  be  nice  to  Miss  Havender,  for  the  sake  of 
Yours  affectionately, 

MARTHA  NOXON. 

Charity  did  not  want  a  picture  of  herself,  but  she 
went  down  to  get  rid  of  Miss  Havender  politely  and  to 

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WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

recommend  her  to  friends  of  greater  passion  for  their  own 
likenesses.  Miss  Havender  was  a  forward  young  person 
and  launched  at  once  into  a  defense  of  moving  pictures. 

"Oh,  I  admire  the  movies  immensely,"  Charity  inter- 
posed. "We  had  some  of  them  in  the  hospitals  abroad. 
If  you  could  have  seen  that  dear  Charlie  Chaplin  convulse 
a  whole  ward  of  battered  soldiers  and  make  them  forget 
their  pain  and  their  anxieties!  He  was  more  of  a  nurse 
than  a  hundred  of  us.  If  he  isn't  a  benefactor,  I  don't 
know  who  is.  Oh,  I  admire  the  movies,  but  I'd  rather  see 
them  than  be  them,  you  know. 

"Still,  an  idea  has  just  occurred  to  me.  You  know  I'm 
terribly  in  need  of  a  pile  of  money." 

Miss  Havender  looked  about  her  and  smiled. 

"Oh,  I  don't  mean  for  myself.  I  have  far  too  much, 
but  for  the  soldiers.  I  want  something  that  will  bring 
in  a  big  sum.  It  occurs  to  me  that  if  a  lot  of  us  got  up 
a  story  and  acted  it  ourselves,  it  would  be  tremendously 
interesting  to — well,  to  ourselves.  And  our  friends  would 
flock  to  see  it.  Amateur  performances  are  ghastly  from 
an  artistic  standpoint,  but  they're  great  fun. 

"It  just  struck  me  that  if  we  got  up  a  play  and  had  a 
cast  made  up  of  Mr.  Jim  Dyckman  and  Tom  Duane  and 
Winnie  Nicolls  and  Miss  Bettany  and  the  young  Stowe 
Webbs  and  Mrs.  Neff  and  people  like  that  it  would  be 
dreadfully  bad  art,  but  much  more  amusing  than  if  we 
had  all  the  stars  in  the  world — Mr.  Drew  and  his  daughter 
and  his  niece  Miss  Barrymore  and  her  brothers,  and  Miss 
Anglin  and  Miss  Bates  or  Miss  Adams  or  anybody  like 
that.  Don't  you  think  so?  Or  what  do  you  think? 
Could  it  be  done,  or  has  it  been — or  what  about  it?" 

Miss  Havender  gasped.  She  saw  new  vistas  of  business 
opening  before  her. 

"Yes,  it  has  been  done  in  a  small  way,  and  it  was  great 
fun,  as  you  say;  but  it  would  have  been  more  fun  if  it 
hadn't  been  so  crude.  What  you  would  need  would  be  a 
director  who  was  not  an  amateur.  Now,  our  director  is 

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WE   CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

marvelous — Mr.  Ferriday.  He's  the  Belasco  of  the  photo- 
plays. He's  as  great  as  Griffith.  He  takes  his  art  like  a 
priest.  If  you  had  him  you  could  do  wonders." 

"Then  we  must  have  him,  by  all  means,"  said  Charity, 
smiling  a  little  at  the  gleam  in  Miss  Havender's  eyes. 
She  had  a  feeling  that  Miss  Havender  had  a  deep,  personal 
interest  in  Mr.  Ferriday.  Miss  Havender  had;  most  of 
the  women  in  his  environs  had.  In  the  first  place,  he  was 
powerful  and  could  increase  or  diminish  or  check  salaries. 
He  distributed  places  and  patronage  with  a  royal  preroga- 
tive. But  he  was  hungry  for  praise  and  suffered  from  the 
lack  of  social  prestige  granted  "the  new  art." 

Miss  Havender  seconded  Charity's  motion  with  en- 
thusiasm. After  a  long  conference  it  was  agreed  that  Miss 
Havender  should  broach  the  matter  to  the  great  Mr. 
Ferriday  while  Charity  recruited  actors  and  authors. 

As  Charity  rummaged  in  her  hand-bag  for  a  pencil 
to  write  Miss  Havender's  telephone  number  with,  she 
turned  out  Kedzie  Thropp's  crumpled,  shabby  card.  She 
started. 

"Oh,  for  Heaven's  sake!  The  poor  child!  I  had  for- 
gotten her  completely.  You  might  be  able  to  do  some- 
thing for  her.  This  Miss  Adair  is  the  prettiest  thing, 
and  I  promised  to  get  her  a  job.  She  might  photograph 
splendidly.  Won't  you  try  to  find  her  a  place?" 

"I'll  guarantee  her  one,"  said  Miss  Havender,  who  was 
sure  that  the  firm  would  be  glad  to  put  Mrs.  Cheever  under 
obligations.  The  firm  was  in  need  of  patronage,  as  Mr. 
Ferriday's  lavish  expenditures  had  crippled  its  treasury, 
while  his  artistic  whims  had  held  up  the  delivery  of  nearly 
finished  films. 

Miss  Havender  told  Charity  to  send  the  girl  to  her  at 
the  office  any  day  and  she  would  take  care  of  her.  Charity 
kept  A  Kedzie's  card  in  her  hand,  and,  as  soon  as  Miss 
Havender  was  gone,  ran  to  her  desk  to  write  Kedzie.  She 
told  a  pale  lie — it  seemed  a  gratuitous  insult  to  confess 
that  she  had  forgotten. 

1 60 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

DEAR  Miss  ADAIR, — Please  forgive  my  delay  in  keeping  my 
promise,  but  I  have  been  unable  to  find  anything  likely  to 
interest  you  till  to-day.  But  now  Miss  Grace  Havender,  of  the 
Hyperfilm  Company,  has  just  assured  me  that  if  you  will  call 
on  her  at  her  office  she  will  see  that  you  are  engaged.  You  will 
photograph  so  beautifully  that  I  am  sure  you  will  have  a  great 
career.  Please  don't  fail  to  call  on  Miss  Havender. 
Yours,with  best  wishes, 

CHARITY  C.  CHEEVER. 

She  sent  the  letter  to  the  address  Kedzie  had  given  her — 
which  was  that  of  Kedzie's  abandoned  boarding-house. 
ii 


CHAPTER  VI 

SINCE  Kedzie,  by  the  time  her  marriage  had  reached 
its  first  morning-after,  had  already  found  her  brand- 
new  husband  odious,  there  was  small  hope  of  her  learning 
to  like  him  or  their  poverty  better  on  close  acquaintance. 

When  he  left  her  for  his  office  she  missed  him,  and  her 
heart  warmed  toward  him  till  he  came  home  again.  He 
always  brought  new  disillusionment  with  him.  He  spent 
his  hours  out  of  office  in  bewailing  his  luck,  celebrating  the 
hardness  of  the  times,  and  proclaiming  the  hopelessness  of 
his  prospects. 

And  then  one  evening  he  arrived  with  so  doleful  a 
countenance  that  Kedzie  took  pity  on  him.  She  perched 
herself  on  his  lap  and  asked  him  what  was  worrying  him. 

"Nothing  much,  honey,"  he  groaned,  "except  that  I've 
lost  my  job." 

Kedzie  was  thunderstruck.  She  breathed  the  expletive 
she  learned  from  her  latest  companions.  "My  Gawd!" 

Gilfoyle  nodded  dreadfully:  "Business  has  been  bad, 
anyway.  Kalteyer,  with  his  chewing-gum,  was  about  our 
only  big  customer,  and  now  he's  gone  bust.  Yep.  The 
bank's  shut  down  on  his  loans,  and  he  was  caught  with  a 
mountain  of  bills  on  his  hands.  And  the  Breathasweeta 
Chewing  Gum  stopped  selling.  People  didn't  seem  to 
take  to  the  perfume  idea." 

"I  just  hate  people!"  Kedzie  growled,  pacing  the  floor. 

Gilfoyle  went  on,  bitterly:  "Remember  how  they  all 
said  I  was  such  a  genius  for  thinking  up  the  name  '  Breath- 
asweeta,' and  the  perfumery  idea?  And  how  they  liked 
my  catch-phrase?" 

162 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Kedzie  nodded. 

Gilfoyle  grew  sarcastic:  "Well,  a  man's  a  genius  if  he 
succeeds,  and  a  fool  if  he  doesn't.  I'm  just  as  sure  as 
ever  that  there's  a  fortune  in  Breathasweeta.  But  when 
Kalteyer's  bankers  got  cold  feet  I  lost  my  halo.  He  and 
Kiam  have  been  roasting  the  life  out  of  me.  They  blame 
me!  They've  kept  knocking  me  and  quoting  'Kiss  me 
again — who  are  you?'  and  then  groaning.  It's  funny.  I 
loved  it  when  everybody  else  said  it  was  great.  But  I 
didn't  care  much  for  it  myself,  the  way  they  said  it." 

Kedzie  flung  herself  on  the  tremulous  wabbly-legged 
divan.  Kedzie  didn't  like  the  phrase,  either,  now.  When 
he  had  first  smitten  it  from  his  brain  she  had  thought  it 
an  inspiration  and  him  a  king.  Now  it  sounded  silly, 
coarse,  a  little  indecent.  Of  course  it  had  not  succeeded. 
How  could  he  ever  have  been  so  foolish  as  to  utter  it — 
"Kiss  me  again — who  are  you?"  Why,  it  was  vulgar! 

Gilfoyle  looked  dismally  incompetent  as  he  drooped 
and  mumbled.  It  is  hard  to  tell  an  autobiography  of 
failure  and  look  one's  best. 

"Didn't  you  tell  him  you  was — you  were  married?" 
queried  Kedzie. 

"I  hadn't  the  courage." 

"Courage!  Well,  I  like  that!  So  you're  fired!  Just 
like  me.  Funny!  And  here  we  are,  married  and  all. 
My  Gaw — " 

"Here  we  are,  married  and  all.  They'll  let  me  finish 
the  week,  but  my  goose  is  cooked,  I  guess.  Jobs  are 
mighty  scarce  in  my  line  of  business.  Everybody's  poor 
except  the  munitions  crowd.  I  wish  I  knew  how  to  make 
dynamite." 

Kedzie  pushed  her  wet  hair  back  from  her  brow  and 
tore  her  waist  open  a  little  deeper  at  the  throat.  This  was 
carrying  the  joke  of  marriage  a  little  too  far  even  for  her 
patient  soul. 

Soon  Gilfoyle's  office  was  closed  to  him  and  he  was  at 
home  almost  all  day.  That  finished  him  with  Kedzie. 

163 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

He  had  not  improved  on  connubial  acquaintance.  He  was 
lazy  and  sloven  of  mornings,  and  since  he  had  no  office 
to  go  to  he  grew  more  neglectful  of  his  appearance  than 
ever.  His  end-to-end  cigarettes  got  on  Kedzie's  nerves 
and  cost  a  nagging  amount  of  money,  especially  as  she 
could  not  learn  to  like  them  herself. 

He  tried  to  write  poetry  for  the  magazines  and  per- 
manently destroyed  what  little  respect  Kedzie  had  for  the 
art.  Hunting  for  some  little  love- word  that  was  unim- 
portant when  found  threw  him  into  frenzies  of  rage.  He 
went  about  mumbling  gibberish. 

"What  in  hell  rhymes  with  heaven?'1  he  would  snarl. 
"Seven,  ceven,  Devon,  fevon,  gevin,  given — "  And  so  on 
to  "zeven."  Then  "breven,  creven,  dreven"  and  "bleven, 
eleven,  dleven"  and  "  pseven,  spleven,  threven"  and  so  forth. 

At  length  he  would  hurl  his  pen  across  the  room,  pull 
at  his  hair,  and  light  another  cigarette.  Cigarette  always 
rhymed  with  cigarette. 

After  a  day  or  two  of  this  drivel  he  produced  a  brief  lyric 
with  a  certain  fleetness  of  movement;  it  had  small  freight 
to  carry.  He  took  it  to  a  number  of  editors  he  knew,  and 
one  of  them  accepted  it  as  a  kindness. 

Kedzie  was  delighted  till  she  heard  that  it  would  bring 
into  the  exchequer  about  seven  dollars  when  the  check 
came,  which  would  be  in  two  weeks. 

When  Gilfoyle  was  not  fighting  at  composition  he  was 
calling  the  editors  hard  names  and  deploring  the  small 
remuneration  given  to  poets  by  a  pork-packing  nation. 
Or  he  would  be  hooting  ridicule  at  the  successful  poets  and 
growing  almost  as  furious  against  the  persons  addicted 
to  the  fashionable  vers  libre  as  he  was  against  the  wealthy 
classes. 

It  seemed  to  Kedzie  that  nothing  on  earth  was  less 
important  than  prosody,  and  that  however  badly  poets 
were  paid,  they  were  paid  more  than  they  earned.  She 
grew  so  lonely  for  some  one  to  talk  to  that  she  decided 
to  call  on  old  Mrs.  Jambers  at  the  boarding-house.  She 

164 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

planned  to  stop  in  at  dinner-time,  in  the  hope  of  being 
asked  to  sit  in  at  a  real  meal.  The  task  of  cooking  what 
she  could  afford  to  buy  robbed  her  of  all  appetite,  and  she 
was  living  mainly  on  fumes  of  food  and  gas. 

She  was  growing  thinner  and  shabbier  of  soul,  and  she 
knew  it.  She  put  off  the  call  till  she  could  endure  her 
solitude  no  longer;  then  she  visited  Mrs.  Jambers.  A 
new  maid  met  her  at  the  door  and  barred  her  entrance 
suspiciously.  Mrs.  Jambers  was  out.  So  was  Mrs. 
Bottger.  So  were  the  old  boarders  that  Kedzie  knew. 
New  boarders  had  their  rooms.  Kedzie  was  exiled  indeed. 

She  turned  away,  saying:  "Tell  Mrs.  Jambers  that 
Anita  Adair  stopped  to  say  hello.  I  was  just  passing." 

"Anita  Adair?"  said  the  maid.  "You  was  Anita 
Adair,  yes?  Wait  once.  It  is  a  letter  for  you  by  down- 
stairs." 

She  closed  the  door  in  Kedzie's  face.  Some  time  later 
she  came  back  and  gave  Anita  the  letter  from  Charity. 
It  was  several  days  old.  She  read  it  with  amazement. 
The  impulse  to  tear  it  up  as  she  had  torn  up  Charity's  card 
in  Newport  did  not  last  long.  She  went  at  once  to  a  drug- 
store and  looked  up  the  telephone  number  and  the  address 
of  the  Hyperfilm  Company.  She  repaid  the  druggist  with 
a  smile  and  a  word  of  thanks;  then  she  took  a  street-car 
to  the  office. 

Miss  Havender,  who  was  also  a  scenario-writer  and 
editor,  was  very  busy.  She  had  an  executive  manner  that 
strangely  contradicted  her  abilities  to  suffer  under  the 
pangs  of  love  and  unrequited  idolatry.  But  then,  busi- 
ness men  are  no  more  immune  to  the  foolish  venom  on 
Cupid's  arrows  than  poets — perhaps  less,  since  they  have 
no  outlet  of  rhapsody.  That  was  one  of  the  troubles  with 
Kedzie's  poet.  By  the  time  Gilfoyle  had  finished  a  poem 
of  love  he  was  so  exhausted  that  any  other  emotion  was 
welcome,  best  of  all  a  good  quarrel  and  the  healthful  ex- 
ercise of  his  poetic  gifts  for  hate.  He  could  hate  at  the 
drop  of  a  hat. 

165 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

When  the  office-boy  brought  Charity's  letter  of  intro- 
duction to  Miss  Havender  with  the  verbal  message  that 
Miss  Adair  was  waiting  outside  Miss  Havender  nodded. 
She  decided  to  procure  this  Miss  Adair  a  good  job  in  order 
to  curry  favor  with  Mrs.  Cheever.  She  would  advise 
Mr.  Ferriday  to  pay  her  marked  attention,  too. 

But  when  she  caught  sight  of  Kedzie  running  the 
gantlet  of  the  battery  of  authors  and  typists,  and  noted 
how  pretty  she  was,  Miss  Havender  decided  that  it  would 
not  be  good  for  Mr.  Ferriday  to  pay  marked  attention  to 
this  minx.  He  had  a  habit  of  falling  in  love  with  women 
more  ardently  than  with  scenarios.  He  was  a  despot 
with  a  scenario,  and  he  could  quickly  make  a  famous 
novel  unrecognizable  by  its  own  father  or  mother.  But  a 
pretty  woman  could  rule  him  ludicrously  while  her  charm 
lasted. 

Miss  Havender  would  gladly  have  turned  Kedzie  from 
the  door,  but  she  did  not  dare.  She  had  promised  Mrs. 
Cheever  to  give  the  girl  a  job.  But  she  had  not  promised 
what  kind  of  job  it  should  be. 

She  received  Kedzie  with  such  brusqueness  that  the 
frightened  girl  almost  fell  off  the  small  rim  of  chair  she 
•dared  to  occupy.  She  offered  Kedzie  a  post  as  a  typist, 
but  Kedzie  could  not  type;  as  a  film-cutter's  assistant, 
but  Kedzie  had  never  seen  a  film;  as  a  printing-machine 
-engineer  or  a  bookkeeper's  clerk,  but  Kedzie  had  no 
ability  to  do  things.  She  could  merely  look  things. 

Finally  Miss  Havender  said:  "I'm  awfully  sorry,  Miss 
Adair,  but  the  only  position  open  is  a  place  as  extra 
woman.  There  is  a  big  ballroom  scene  to  be  staged  to- 
morrow, and  a  low  dance-hall  the  next  day,  and  on  Monday 
a  crowd  of  starving  Belgian  peasants.  We  could  use  you 
in  those,  but  of  course  you  wouldn't  care  to  accept  the 
pay." 

She  said  this  hopefully.     Kedzie  answered,  hopelessly: 

"What's  the  pay?" 

"Three  dollars." 

1 66 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"I'll  take  it." 

Miss  Havender  accepted  the  inevitable,  gave  her  the 
address  of  the  studio — far  up-town  in  the  Bronx — and  told 
her  to  report  at  eight  the  next  morning. 

Kedzie  went  back  to  her  home  in  a  new  mood.  She 
was  the  breadwinner  now,  if  not  a  cake-earner.  Gilfoyle 
was  depressed  by  her  good  news,  and  she  was  indignant 
because  he  was  not  happy.  The  poor  fellow  was  simply 
ashamed  of  his  own  inability  to  support  her  in  the  style 
she  had  been  accustomed  to  dreaming  about. 

Kedzie  was  sullen  at  having  to  get  the  dinner  that  night. 
The  hot  water  would  not  help  to  give  her  hands  the  ball- 
room texture.  The  next  morning  she  had  to  leave  early. 
Gilfoyle  was  too  tired  of  doing  nothing  to  get  up,  and 
she  resolved  to  buy  her  breakfast  ready-made  outside. 
Her  last  glance  at  her  husband  with  his  frowsy  hair  on  his 
frowsy  pillow  infuriated  her. 

The  experience  at  the  big  studio  assuaged  her  wrath 
against  life.  It  was  something  new,  and  there  was  a  thrill 
in  the  concerted  action  of  the  crowds.  She  wore  a  rented 
ball-gown  which  did  not  fit  her.  Seeing  how  her  very 
shoulders  winced  at  their  exposure,  one  would  not  have 
believed  that  she  was  a  graduate  of  the  Silsby  school  of 
near  to  nature  in  next  to  nothing. 

She  danced  with  an  extra  man,  Mr.  Clarence  Yoder,  a 
portly  actor  out  of  work.  He  was  a  costume-play  gentle- 
man, and  Kedzie  thought  him  something  grand.  He  found 
her  an  entrancing  armload.  He  was  rather  aggressive 
and  held  her  somewhat  straitly  to  his  exuberant  form,  but 
he  gave  her  so  much  information  that  she  did  not  snub  him. 
She  did  not  even  tell  him  that  she  was  married.  Indeed, 
when  at  the  close  of  a  busy  day  he  hinted  at  a  willingness  to 
take  her  out  to  see  a  picture  that  evening,  she  made  other 
excuses  than  those  that  actually  prevented  her  accepting. 
She  spent  a  doleful  evening  at  home  with  her  dour  husband 
and  resented  him  more  than  ever. 

On  the  second  day  Kedzie  was  a  slum  waif  and  did 

167 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

not  like  it.     She  pouted  with  a  sincerity  that  was  irre- 
sistible. 

Mr.  Ferriday  did  not  direct  the  crowd  scenes  in  these 
pictures.  His  assistant,  Mr.  Garfinkel,  was  the  slave- 
driver.  Mr.  Yoder  cleverly  called  him  "Simon  Legree." 
Kedzie  did  not  know  who  Mr.  Legree  was,  but  she  laughed 
because  Mr.  Yoder  looked  as  if  he  wanted  her  to  laugh, 
and  she  had  decided  that  he  was  worth  cultivating. 

During  the  course  of  the  day,  however,  Mr.  Garfinkel 
fell  afoul  of  Mr.  Yoder  because  of  the  way  he  danced  with 
Kedzie.  It  was  a  rough  dance  prettily  entitled  "Walking 
the  Dog."  Mr.  Yoder,  who  did  a  minuet  in  satin  breeches 
to  his  own  satisfaction,  pleased  neither  himself  nor  Mr. 
Garfinkel  in  the  more  modern  expression  of  the  dancer's 
art. 

Mr.  Garfinkel  called  him  a  number  of  names  which  Mr. 
Yoder  would  never  have  tolerated  if  he  had  not  needed  the 
money.  He  quivered  with  humiliation  and  struggled  to 
conform,  but  he  could  not  please  the  sneering  overseer. 
He  sought  the  last  resort  of  those  persecuted  by  critics: 

"  Maybe  you  can  do  better  yourself!" 

"Well,  I  hope  I  choke  if  I  can't,"  Garfinkel  said  as  he 
passed  the  manuscript  to  the  camera-man  and  summoned 
Kedzie  to  his  embrace.  "Here,  Miss  What's-your-name, 
git  to  me." 

Kedzie  slipped  into  his  clutch,  and  he  took  her  as  if  she 
were  a  sheaf  of  wheat.  His  arms  loved  her  lithe  elasticities. 
He  dragged  her  through  the  steps  with  a  wondering  increase 
of  interest.  "Well,  say!"  he  muttered  for  her  private  con- 
sumption, "you're  a  little  bit  of  all  right.  I'm  not  so  worse 
myself  when  I  have  such  help." 

He  danced  with  her  longer  than  was  necessary  for  the 
demonstration.  Then  he  reluctantly  turned  her  over  to 
Mr.  Yoder.  Kedzie  did  not  like  Mr.  Yoder  any  more. 
She  found  him  fat  and  clumsy,  and  his  hands  were  fat  and 
clammy. 

Mr.  Garfinkel  had  to  show  him  again. 
168 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Kedzie  could  not  help  murmuring  up  toward  his  chin, 
"I  wish  I  could  dance  with  you  instead  of  him." 

Garfinkel  muttered  down  into  her  topknot:  "You  can, 
girlie,  but  not  before  the  camera.  There's  a  reason.  How 
about  a  little  roof  garden  this  evening,  huh?" 

Kedzie  sighed,  "I'm  sorry — I  can't." 

Garfinkel  realized  that  the  crowd  was  sitting  up  and 
taking  notice,  and  so  he  flung  Kedzie  back  to  Yoder  and  pro- 
ceeded with  the  picture.  He  was  angry  at  himself  and  at 
Kedzie,  but  Kedzie  was  angered  at  her  husband,  who  was 
keeping  her  from  every  opportunity  of  advancement. 
Even  as  he  loafed  at  home  he  prevented  her  ambitions. 
"The  dog  in  the  manger!"  she  called  him. 

Garfinkel  paid  her  no  further  attention  except  to  take 
a  close-up  of  her  standing  at  a  soppy  table  and  drinking  a 
glass  of  stale  beer  with  a  look  of  desperate  pathos.  She  was 
supposed  to  be  a  slum  waif  who  had  never  had  a  mother's 
care.  Kedzie  had  had  too  much  of  the  same. 

The  next  day  was  a  Saturday.  Kedzie  did  not  work. 
She  was  lonely  for  toil,  and  she  abhorred  the  flat  and  the 
neighbors.  The  expressive  parrot  was  growing  tautological. 
Kedzie  went  out  shopping  to  be  rid  of  Gilfoyle's  nerves. 
He  was  in  travail  of  another  love-jingle,  and  his  tantrums 
were  odious.  He  kept  repeating  love  and  dove  and  above, 
and  tender,  slender,  offend  Iier,  defender,  and  kiss  and  bliss 
till  the  very  words  grew  gibberish,  detestable  nonsense. 

Kedzie  wandered  the  shops  in  a  famine  of  desire  for  some 
of  the  new  styles.  Her  pretty  body  cried  out  for  appro- 
priate adornment  as  its  birthright.  She  was  ashamed  to 
go  to  the  studio  a  third  time  in  the  same  old  suit.  She 
ordered  one  little  slip  of  a  dress  sent  home  "collect."  She 
had  hoarded  the  remnant  of  her  Silsby  dollars.  When 
she  reached  home  the  delivery-wagon  was  at  the  curb  and 
the  man  was  up-stairs.  Gilfoyle  greeted  Kedzie  with  re- 
sentment. 

"  What's  this  thing  ?  I've  got  no  money  to  pay  it.  You 
know  that." 

169 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"  Oh,  I  know  that  well,"  said  Kedzie,  and  she  went  to  the 
kitchen,  where  she  surreptitiously  extracted  the  money 
from  the  depths  of  the  coffee-canister. 

She  paid  for  the  dress  and  put  it  on.  But  she  would  not 
let  Gilfoyle  see  her  in  it.  She  did  not  mind  buying  his 
cigarettes  half  so  much  as  she  minded  paying  for  her  own 
clothes.  It  outraged  the  very  foundation  principles  of 
matrimony  to  have  to  pay  for  her  own  clothes. 

Sunday  was  an  appallingly  long  day  to  get  through.  She 
was  so  frantic  for  diversion  that  she  would  have  gone  to 
church  if  she  had  had  anything  fashionable  enough  to  wor- 
ship in.  In  the  afternoon  she  went  out  alone  and  sat  on  a 
bench  in  upper  Riverside  Drive.  A  number  of  passers- 
by  tried  to  flirt  with  her,  but  it  was  rather  her  bitterness 
against  men  than  any  scruple  that  kept  her  eyes  lowered. 

She  would  have  been  excited  enough  if  she  had  known  that 
the  pictures  in  which  she  played  a  small  part  were  being 
run  off  in  the  projection-room  at  the  studio  for  Mr.  Fern- 
day's  benefit. 

Everybody  was  afraid  of  him.  The  heads  of  the  firm 
were  hoping  that  he  would  approve  the  reels  and  not  order 
them  thrown  out.  They  were  convinced  that  they  would 
have  to  break  with  him  before  he  broke  them.  Mr. 
Garfinkel  was  hoping  for  a  word  of  approval  from  the 
artistic  tyrant. 

But  Ferriday  was  fretful  and  sarcastic  about  everything. 
Suddenly  Miss  Havender  noted  that  he  was  interested, 
noted  it  by  the  negative  proof  of  his  sudden  repose  and 
silence.  She  could  tell  that  he  was  leaning  forward,  taut 
with  interest.  She  saw  that  Anita  Adair  was  floating 
across  the  screen  in  the  arms  of  Mr.  Yoder. 

There  followed  various  scenes  in  which  Kedzie  did  not 
appear,  close-up  pictures  of  other  people.  Ferriday  fell 
back  growling.  Then  he  came  bolt  upright  as  the  purring 
spinning-wheel  of  the  projection  machine  poured  out  more 
of  Kedzie. 

Suddenly  he  shouted  through  the  dark:  "Stop!     Wait! 
170 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Go  back!  Give  us  the  last  twenty  feet  again.  Who  is 
that  girl — that  dream?  Who  is  she,  Garfinkel?" 

"I  don't  know  her  name,  sir." 

"Don't  know  her  name!  You  wouldn't!  Well,  the 
whole  world  will  know  her  name  before  I  get  through  with 
her.  Who  is  she,  anyway?" 

Miss  Havender  spoke.  "Her  name  is  Adair — Anita 
Adair." 

"Anita  Adair,  eh?  Well,  where  did  she  come  from? 
Who  dug  her  up?" 

"I  did,"  said  Miss  Havender. 

"Good  for  you,  old  girl!  She's  just  what  I  need." 
And  now  he  studied  again  the  scene  in  which  Kedzie 
took  down  the  draught  of  bitter  beer,  and  there  was  a 
superhuman  vividness  in  the  close-up,  with  its  magnified 
details  in  which  every  tiny  muscle  revealed  its  soul. 

"Look  at  her!"  Ferriday  cried.  "She's  perfect.  The 
pathos  of  her!  She  wants  training,  like  the  devil,  but, 
Lord,  what  material!" 

He  was  as  fanatic  as  a  Michelangelo  finding  in  a  quarry 
a  neglected  block  of  marble  and  seeing  through  its  hard 
edges  the  mellow  contours  of  an  ideal.  He  was  as  im- 
patient to  assail  his  task  and  beat  off  the  encumbering 
weight. 


CHAPTER  VII 

L/^EDZIE  wore  her  new  frock  when  she  reached  the 
.TV  studio  on  Monday  morning.  She  greeted  Mr.  Gar- 
finkel  with  an  entreating  smile,  and  was  alarmed  by  the 
remoteness  of  his  response.  He  was  cold  because  she 
was  not  for  him.  He  led  her  respectfully  to  the  anteroom 
of  the  sacred  inclosure  where  Ferriday  was  behaving 
like  a  lion  in  a  cage,  belching  his  wrath  at  his  keepers, 
ordering  the  fund-finders  to  find  more  funds  for  his 
great  picture.  It  threatened  to  bankrupt  them  before 
it  was  finished,  but  he  derided  them  as  imbeciles,  money- 
changers, misers. 

Garfinkel  was  manifestly  afraid  of  Ferriday's  very  echo, 
and  he  cowered  a  little  when  Ferriday  burst  through  the 
door  with  mane  bristling  and  fangs  bared. 

"Well,  well,  well!"  Ferriday  stormed.  "What  do  you 
want,  Garfinkel?  What  do  you  want,  Garfinkel?  What 
do  you  want?" 

"  You  told  me  to  bring  Miss  Adair  to  you  as  soon  as  she 
arrived,  and — " 

The  lion  roared  as  gentle  as  a  sucking  dove. 

"And  this  is  Miss  Adair,  is  it?  Of  course  it  is.  Wel- 
come to  our  little  boiler-factory,  my  dear.  Come  in  and 
sit  down.  Garfinkel,  get  her  a  chair  and  then  get  out. 
Sit  down,  child.  I  never  bite  pretty  girls." 

Kedzie  was  pleasantly  terrified,  and  she  wondered 
what  would  befall  her  next.  She  gave  the  retreating 
Garfinkel  no  further  thought.  She  sat  and  trembled  be- 
fore the  devouring  gaze  of  the  great  Ferriday.  He  studied 
her  professionally,  but  he  was  intensely,  extravagantly 

172 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

human.  That  was  why  he  appealed  to  the  public  so 
potently.  He  took  their  feelings  and  set  them  on  fire  and 
juggled  with  them  flaming. 

He  had  such  caloric  that  he  kindled  actors  and  actresses 
to  unsuspected  brilliances.  He  made  tinder  of  the  dry- 
as-dusts,  and  he  brought  the  warm-hearted  to  a  white-hot 
glow. 

He  dealt  with  primary  emotions  crudely  but  vigorously. 
A  soldier  saluting  an  officer  became  in  a  Ferriday  picture  a 
zealot  rendering  a  national  homage.  A  maid  watching 
her  lover  walk  away  angry  became  a  Juliet  letting  Romeo 
go;  a  child  weeping  over  a  broken  doll  was  an  epitome  of 
all  regret.  A  mother  putting  a  light  in  the  window  for  an 
erring  daughter's  guidance  was  something  new,  an  allegory 
as  great  as  Bartholdi's  Liberty  putting  her  lamp  in  the 
window  of  the  nation. 

He  was  as  intense  with  humor  as  with  sorrow.  A  girl 
washing  dishes  brought  shrieks  of  laughter  at  the  little 
things  she  did — the  struggle  with  the  slippery  soap,  the 
recoil  from  the  hot  plate,  the  carelessness  with  the  towel. 

Ferriday  had  not  talked  to  Kedzie  two  minutes  before 
she  was  wringing  her  hands  with  excitement.  He  was 
discovering  her  to  herself.  He  told  her  the  story  of  a 
picture  he  wanted  to  put  her  in.  He  had  withheld  it  for 
months,  looking  for  the  right  interpreter.  He  resolved 
to  postpone  the  completion  of  the  big  picture  till  he  had 
finished  a  five-reel  idyl  for  the  apotheosis  of  Kedzie. 

"The  backers  of  the  enterprise  will  have  apoplexy 
when  they  hear  of  it,"  he  laughed.  "But  what  do  I  care?" 

The  whole  army  of  the  studio  stood  meanwhile  at  ease, 
drawing  salary  and  waiting  for  Ferriday  to  remember  his 
day's  program  and  give  the  order  to  go  ahead.  But  he 
was  busy  with  his  new  story,  in  the  throes  of  nympholepsy, 
seeing  visions,  hearing  voices. 

Kedzie  sat  in  a  marble  expectancy,  Galatea  watching 
Pygmalion  create  her  and  prepare  to  bring  her  to  life. 
She  had  never  lived.  She  realized  that.  All  her  previous 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

existence  had  been  but  blind  gropings  in  the  womb  of 
time. 

The  backers  came  to  remind  Ferriday  that  there  was 
waiting  a  costly  mob  of  actors,  wooed  from  the  speaking 
drama  by  trebled  salaries.  Ferriday  howled  to  them  to 
get  out.  They  did  not  respect  his  inspirations;  they  sus- 
pected his  motives  toward  Kedzie. 

But  Ferriday  was  deep  in  love  with  his  art ;  he  was  pant- 
ing with  the  afflation  of  Apollo.  Old  motives,  old  scenes, 
old  characters  that  had  served  as  "sure-fire  stuff"  since 
the  earliest  Hindu  drama  now  fell  into  their  ancient  places 
and  he  thought  them  new.  Kedzie  was  sure  she  had  never 
heard  such  original  ideas.  Her  gratitude  to  Ferriday  was 
absolute.  And  he  was  clever  enough,  or  crazy  enough, 
to  say  that  he  was  grateful  to  her.  He  had  been  looking 
for  just  Her,  and  she  had  come  to  him  just  in  time.  He 
made  her  promises  that  Solomon  could  not  have  made  to 
Sheba,  or  Shakespeare  to  the  dark  lady. 

Solomon  could  offer  to  his  visitor  Ophirian  wealth,  and 
Shakespeare  could  guarantee  with  some  show  of  success 
(up  to  date)  that  his  words  of  praise  would  outlive  all 
other  monuments.  But  Ferriday  did  not  offer  Kedzie 
minerals  or  adjectives.  He  cried: 

"Little  girl,  I'll  put  you  on  a  girdle  of  films  that  will 
encircle  the  world.  Your  smile  will  run  round  the  globe 
like  the  sun,  and  light  up  dark  places  in  Africa.  Your 
tears  will  shower  the  earth.  People  in  thousands  of  towns 
will  watch  your  least  gesture  with  anxiety.  Queens  will 
have  you  brought  to  their  palaces  to  make  them  laugh 
and  cry.  The  soldiers  of  the  world  will  call  you  their 
mascot  and  write  love-letters  to  you  from  the  trenches. 
I  will  have  a  billion  pictures  made  of  you,  and  you  shall 
breathe  and  move  in  all  of  them.  You  shall  live  a 
million  lives  at  once.  I  will  have  your  other  self  placed 
in  museums  so  that  centuries  from  now  they  can  take 
you  out  and  bring  you  to  life  again." 

It  was  a  mighty  good  speech.     It  would  be  hard  to  find 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

a  serenade  to  beat  it.  And  he  read  it  superbly.  He 
had  sung  it  to  every  one  of  his  only  girls  in  the  world,  his 
eternal  (pro  tern.)  passions.  He  had  had  about  nineteen 
muses  already. 

Kedzie  did  not  know  this,  of  course.  And  it  would 
not  have  mattered  much.  Better  the  nine-and-ninetieth 
muse  to  such  a  man  than  the  first  and  final  gas-stove  slave 
of  a  Tommie  Gilfoyle. 

Kedzie  sat  in  the  state  of  nerves  of  a  little  girl  alone 
on  a  mountain-top  with  lightning  shimmering  and  striking 
all  round  her.  She  was  so  happy,  so  full  of  electrical 
sparks,  that  she  was  fairly  incandescent.  As  she  said 
afterward,  she  felt  "all  lit  up." 

Ferriday  spun  out  the  plot  of  his  new  five-reel  scenario 
until  he  was  like  an  unreeled  spider.  He  was  all  out.  The 
mechanical  details  interested  and  refreshed  him  now. 
He  must  order  the  studio  scenery  and  select  the  outdoor 
' '  locations. ' '  He  must  pick  the  supporting  cast  and  devise 
one  or  two  blood-curdling  moments  of  great  peril. 

Kedzie  was  too  excited  to  note  the  ghoulish  joy  with 
which  he  planned  to  put  her  into  the  most  perilous  plights 
that  had  ever  threatened  even  a  movie  star  with  death  or 
crippledom. 

"Do  they  scare  you,  my  dear?"  he  asked. 

"Scare  me?"  said  Kedzie.  "Why,  Mr.  Ferriday,  if  you 
told  me  to,  I'd  go  out  to  the  Bronx  Zoo-ological  Gardens 
and  bite  the  ear  off  the  biggest  lion  they  got  in  the  lion- 
house." 

Ferriday  reached  out,  put  his  arm  about  her  farther 
shoulder,  and  squeezed  her  to  him  after  the  manner  of 
closing  an  accordeon.  Kedzie  emitted  the  same  kind  of 
squeak.  But  she  was  not  unhappy,  and  she  did  not  even 
say,  "Sir!" 

The  plot  of  The  Kedziad  was  to  be  based  on  the  From- 
Rags-to-Riches  leitmotiv.  Kedzie  was  to  be  a  cruelly 
treated  waif  brought  up  as  a  boy  by  a  demoniac  Italian 
padrone  who  made  her  steal.  She  was  to  be  sent  into  a 

175 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

rich  man's  home  to  rob  it.  She  would  find  the  rich  man 
about  to  commit  suicide  all  over  his  sumptuous  library. 
She  would  save  him,  and  he  would  save  her  from  the 
padrone's  revenge,  on  condition  that  she  should  dress  as  a 
girl  (he  had  not,  of  course,  suspected  that  she  really  was 
one  at  the  time — had  always  been  one,  in  fact).  She 
would  dress  as  a  girl  and  conduct  a  very  delicate  diplomatic 
mission  with  a  foreign  ambassador,  involving  a  submarine 
wrecked  (in  the  studio  tank)  and  a  terrific  ride  across 
one  of  the  deadliest  battle-fields  of  Verdun  (New  Jersey) 
with  a  vast  army  of  three  hundred  supers. 

When  Kedzie  had  saved  two  or  three  nations  and  kept 
the  United  States  from  war  the  millionaire  would  regret 
that  she  was,  after  all,  only  a  boy  and  be  overcome  with 
rapture  when  she  told  him  the  truth.  The  three  hundred 
supers  would  then  serve  as  wedding-guests  in  the  biggest 
church  wedding  ever  pulled  off. 

Kedzie  liked  this  last  touch  immensely.  It  would  make 
up  for  that  disgusting  guestless  ceremony  in  the  Municipal 
Building. 

Ferriday  got  rid  of  her  exquisitely  by  writing  a  note  and 
saying  to  her: 

"Now  you  run  down  and  hop  into  my  car  and  take  this 
note  to  Lady  Powell-Carewe— don't  fail  to  call  her  'Pole 
Gary.'  She  is  to  design  your  wealthy  wardrobe,  and  I 
want  her  to  study  you  and  do  something  unheard  of  in 
novelty  and  beauty.  Tell  her  that  the  more  she  spends 
the  better  I'll  like  it." 

Kedzie  was  really  a  heroine.  She  did  not  swoon  even 
at  that. 

When  Ferriday  dismissed  her  he  enfolded  her  to  his 
beautiful  waistcoat,  and  then  held  her  off  by  her  two  arms 
and  said : 

"Little  girl,  you've  made  me  so  happy!  So  happy! 
Ah!  We'll  do  great  things  together!  This  is  a  red-letter 
day  for  the  movie  art." 

Kedzie  never  feared  that  it  might  have  a  scarlet-letter 
176 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

significance.  She  forgot  that  she  was  anything  but  a  new- 
born, full-fledged  angel  without  a  past — only  a  future  with 
the  sky  for  its  limit.  Alas!  we  always  have  our  pasts. 
Even  the  unborn  babe  has  already  centuries  of  a  past. 

It  was  Ferriday  who  brought  Kedzie  home  to  hers. 

"What  about  dinner  to-night,  my  dear?  I  feel  like 
having  a  wonderful  dinner  to-night!  Are  partridge  in 
season  now?  What  is  your  favorite  sherry?  Let  me  call 
for  you  at,  say,  seven.  Where  shall  I  call?" 

Kedzie  flopped  back  from  the  empyrean  to  her  flat. 
Gilfoyle  again  blockaded  her. 

She  nearly  swooned  then.  Her  soul  rummaged  frantic- 
ally through  a  brain  like  her  own  work-basket.  She 
finally  dug  up  an  excuse. 

"I'd  rather  meet  you  at  the  restaurant." 

Ferriday  smiled.  He  understood.  The  poor  thing  was 
ashamed  of  her  boarding-house. 

"Well,  Cinderella,  let  me  send  my  pumpkin  for  you,  at 
least.  I  won't  come.  Where  shall  my  chauffeur  find 
you?" 

Kedzie  whimpered  the  shabby  number  of  the  shabby 
street. 

"Shall  he  ask  for  Miss  Adair,  or — " 

Kedzie  was  inspired:  "I  live  in  Mrs.  Gilfoyle's  flat- 
partment." 

"I  see,"  said  Ferriday.  "Miss  Anita  Adair — ring 
Mrs.  Gilfoyle's  bell.  All  right,  my  angel,  at  seven.  Run 
along." 

He  kissed  her,  and  she  was  ice-cold.  But  then  women 
were  often  like  that  before  Ferriday's  genius. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  things  we  are  ashamed  of  are  an  acid  test  of  our 
souls.  Kedzie  Thropp  was  constantly  improving  the 
quality  of  her  disgusts. 

A  few  months  ago  she  was  hardly  ashamed  of  sleeping 
under  a  park  bench.  And  already  here  she  was  sliding 
through  the  street  in  a  limousine.  It  was  a  shabby 
limousine,  but  she  was  not  yet  ready  to  be  ashamed  of 
any  limousine.  She  was  proud  to  have  it  lent  to  her,  proud 
to  know  anybody  who  owned  such  a  thing. 

What  she  was  ashamed  of  now  was  the  home  it  must 
take  her  to  and  the  jobless  husband  waiting  for  her  there. 
She  was  ashamed  of  herself  for  tying  up  with  a  husband  so 
soon.  She  had  married  in  haste  and  repented  in  haste. 
And  there  was  a  lot  of  leisure  for  more  repentance. 

Already  her  husband  was  such  a  handicap  that  she 
had  refrained  from  mentioning  his  existence  to  the  great 
moving-picture  director  who  had  opened  a  new  world  of 
glory  to  her — thrown  on  a  screen,  as  it  were,  a  cinemation 
of  her  future,  where  triumphs  followed  one  another  with 
moving-picture  rapidity.  He  had  made  a  scenario  of  her 
and  invited  her  to  dinner. 

She  smiled  a  little  at  the  inspiration  that  had  saved  her 
from  confessing  that  shft  was  Mrs.  Gilfoyle.  It  was  neat 
of  her  to  tell  Mr.  Ferriday  that  she  could  be  addressed  "in 
care  of  Mrs.  Gilfoyle."  In  care  of  herself!  That  was  just 
what  she  was.  Who  else  was  so  interested  in  Kedzie' s 
advancement  as  Kedzie? 

She  was  a  bitterly  disappointed  Kedzie  just  now. 
Ferriday  had  told  her  to  go  to  Lady  Powell-Carewe  and 

178 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

get  herself  a  bevy  of  specially  designed  gowns  at  the 
expense  of  the  firm.  There  was  hardly  a  woman  alive 
who  would  not  have  rejoiced  at  such  a  mission.  To 
Kedzie,  who  had  never  had  a  gown  made  by  anything 
higher  than  a  sewing-woman,  the  privilege  was  heavenly. 
Also,  she  had  never  met  a  Lady  with  a  capital  L. 

The  dual  strain  might  have  been  the  death  of  her,  but 
she  was  saved  by  the  absence  of  Lady  Powell-Carewe. 
Kedzie  went  back  to  the  street,  sick  with  deferred  hope. 
Ferriday's  chauffeur  was  waiting  to  take  her  home. 
She  felt  grateful  for  the  thoughtfulness  of  Ferriday  and 
crept  in. 

The  nearer  Kedzie  came  to  her  lowly  highly  flat  the 
less  she  wanted  even  the  chauffeur  of  Mr.  Ferriday's 
limousine  to  see  her  enter  it.  He  would  come  for  her 
again  at  night,  but  the  building  did  not  look  so  bad  at 
night. 

So  she  tapped  on  the  glass  and  told  him  to  let  her  out, 
please,  at  the  drug-store,  as  she  had  some  marketing  to  do. 

"Sure,  Miss,"  said  the  chauffeur. 

Kedzie  liked  that  "  Miss."  It  was  ever  so  much  prettier 
than  "Mizzuz."  She  bought  some  postage-stamps  at  the 
drug-store  and  some  pork  chops  at  the  butcher's  and  went 
down  the  street  and  up  the  stairs  to  her  life-partner,  dog 
on  him! 

Gilfoyle  was  just  finishing  a  poem,  and  he  was  the  least 
attractive  thing  in  the  world  to  her,  next  to  his  poem. 
He  was  in  his  sock  feet;  his  suspenders  were  down — he 
would  wear  the  hateful  things!  his  collar  was  off,  his 
sleeves  up ;  his  detachable  cuffs  were  detached  and  stuck 
on  the  mantelpiece;  his  hair  was  crazy,  and  he  had  ink 
smears  on  his  nose. 

"  Don't  speak  to  me !"  he  said,  frantically,  as  he  thumped 
the  table  with  finger  after  finger  to  verify  the  meter. 

"No  danger!"  said  Kedzie,  and  went  into  the  bedroom 
to  look  over  her  scant  wardrobe  and  choose  the  least  of  its 
evils  to  wear. 

179 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

She  shook  her  head  at  her  poverty  and  went  to  the 
kitchen  to  cook  lunch  for  her  man.  He  followed  her  and 
read  her  his  poem  while  she  slammed  the  oven  door  of  the 
gas-stove  at  the  exquisitely  wrong  moments.  She  broke 
his  heart  by  her  indifference  and  he  tore  up  the  poem, 
carefully  saving  the  pieces. 

"A  whole  day's  work  and  five  dollars  gone!"  he  groaned. 
He  was  so  sulky  that  he  forgot  to  ask  her  why  she  had 
come  home  so  early.  He  assumed  that  she  had  been 
turned  off.  She  taxed  her  ingenuity  to  devise  some  way 
of  getting  to  the  dinner  with  Ferriday  without  letting 
Gilfoyle  know  of  it.  At  last  she  made  so  bold  as  to  tell 
her  husband  that  she  thought  she  would  drop  in  at  her 
old  boarding-house  and  stay  for  dinner  if  she  got  asked. 

"I'm  sick  of  my  cooking,"  she  said. 

"So  am  I,  darling.  Go  by  all  means!"  said  Gilfoyle, 
who  owed  her  one  for  the  poem. 

Kedzie  was  suspicious  of  his  willingness  to  let  her  go, 
but  already  she  had  outgrown  jealousy  of  him.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  he  had  been  invited  to  join  a  few  cronies 
at  dinner  in  a  grimy  Italian  boarding-house.  They  gave 
it  a  little  interest  by  calling  it  a  "speak-easy,"  because 
the  proprietor  sold  liquor  without  a  license.  Gilfoyle's 
cronies  did  not  know  of  his  marriage  and  he  was  sure  that 
Kedzie  would  not  fit.  She  did  not  even  know  the  names 
of  the  successful,  therefore  mercenary,  writers  and  illus- 
trators, much  less  the  names  of  the  unsuccessful,  there- 
fore artistic  and  sincere. 

To  Kedzie's  delight,  Gilfoyle  took  himself  off  at  the  end 
of  a  perfect  day  of  misery.  He  left  her  alone  with  her 
ambitions.  She  was  in  very  grand  company.  She 
hated  the  duds  she  had  to  wear,  but  she  solaced  herself 
with  planning  what  she  should  buy  when  money  was 
rolling  in. 

When  Ferriday's  car  came  for  her  she  was  standing  in 
the  doorway.  She  hopped  in  like  the  Cinderella  that 
Ferriday  had  called  her.  When  the  car  rolled  up  to  the 

180 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Knickerbocker  Hotel  she  pretended  that  it  was  her  own 
motor. 

Ferriday  was  standing  at  the  curb,  humbly  bareheaded. 
He  wore  a  dinner-jacket  and  a  soft  hat  which  he  tucked 
under  his  arm  so  that  he  might  clasp  her  hands  in  both  of 
his  with  a  costume-play  fervor.  He  had  been  an  actor 
once — and  he  boasted  that  he  had  been  a  very  bad  one. 

Kedzie  felt  as  if  he  were  helping  her  from  a  sedan  chair. 
She  imagined  her  knee  skirts  lengthened  to  a  brocaded 
train,  and  his  trousers  gathered  up  into  knee  breeches  with 
silver  buckles. 

Bitterness  came  back  to  her  as  she  entered  the  hotel 
and  her  slimpsy  little  cloth  gown  must  brush  the  Parisian 
skirts  of  the  richly  clad  other  women. 

She  pouted  in  right  earnest  and  it  was  infinitely  becom- 
ing to  her.  Ferriday  was  not  thinking  of  the  price  or  cut 
of  her  frock.  He  was  perceiving  the  flexile  figure  that 
informed  it,  the  virginal  shoulders  that  curved  up  out  of 
it,  the  slender,  limber  throat  that  aspired  from  them  and 
the  flower-poise  of  her  head  on  its  white  stalk. 

"You  are  perfect,"  he  groaned  into  her  ear,  with  a 
flattering  agony  of  appreciation. 

That  made  everything  all  right  and  she  did  not  tremble 
much  even  before  the  maitre  d'hotel.  She  was  a  trifle 
alarmed  at  the  covey  of  waiters  who  hastened  to  their 
table  to  pull  out  the  chairs  and  push  them  in  and  fetch 
the  water  and  bread  and  butter  and  silver  and  plates. 
She  was  glad  to  have  long  gloves  to  take  off  slowly  while 
she  recovered  herself  and  took  in  the  gorgeous  room  full 
of  gorgeous  people.  Gloves  are  most  useful  coming  off 
and  going  on. 

Kedzie  was  afraid  of  the  bill  of  fare  with  its  complex 
French  terms,  but  Ferriday  took  command  of  the  menu. 

When  he  was  working  Ferriday  could  wolf  a  sandwich 
with  the  greed  of  a  busy  artist  and  give  orders  with  a  shred 
of  meat  in  one  hand  and  a  mug  of  coffee  in  the  other. 
But  when  he  luxuriated  he  luxuriated. 

181 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Tonight  he  was  tired  of  life  and  dejected  from  a  battle 
with  the  stingy  backers,  who  had  warned  him  for  the 
last  time  once  more  that  he  had  to  economize.  He 
needed  to  forget  such  people  and  the  loathsome  enemy  of 
fancy,  economy. 

"I  want  to  order  something  as  exquisite  as  you  are," 
he  said.  "Of  course,  there  could  be  nothing  as  exquisite 
as  you  are,  Miss  Adair — unless  you  were  curled  up  on  a 
silver  dish  with  a  little  apple  in  your  mouth  like  a  young 
roast  pig.  Ever  read  Lamb  on  pig?" 

Kedzie  laughed  with  glancing  tintinnabulations  as  if  one 
tapped  a  row  of  glasses  with  a  knife. 

Ferriday  sighed.  He  saw  that  she  had  never  heard 
of  Lamb  and  thought  he  was  perpetrating  an  an- 
cient pun.  But  he  did  not  like  bookish  women  and 
he  often  said  that  nothing  was  more  becoming  to  a 
woman  than  ignorance.  They  should  have  wisdom, 
but  no  learning. 

Ferriday  was  one  of  those  terrifying  persons  who  know, 
or  pretend  to  know,  curious  secrets  about  restaurants  and 
their  resources.  Wine-cellars  and  the  individualities  of 
chefs  had  no  terror  for  him  so  far  as  she  could  see.  He 
expressed  contempt  for  apparent  commonplaces  that 
Kedzie  had  never  heard  of.  He  used  French  words  with 
an  accent  that  Kedzie  supposed  to  be  perfect. 

The  waiters  knew  that  he  did  not  know  much  and  had 
merely  picked  up  a  smattering  of  dining-room  lore,  but 
they  humored  his  affectations.  And  of  all  affectations, 
what  is  more  futile  than  the  printing  of  American  bills 
of  fare  in  French  ? 

"Would  you  prefer  the  Astrakhan  caviar?"  he  began  on 
Kedzie,  "or  some  or-durv?  The  caviar  here  is  fairly 
trustworthy." 

Kedzie  shrugged  her  perfectly  accented  shoulders  in  a 
cowardly  evasion,  and  he  ordered  the  first  caviar  Kedzie 
had  ever  eaten.  It  looked  as  if  it  came  from  a  munitions- 
factory,  but  she  liked  it  immensely,  especially  as  a  side- 

182 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

long  glance  at  the  bill  of  fare  told  her  that  it  cost  one 
dollar  and  twenty-five  cents  per  person. 

Next  he  proposed  either  a  potage  madrilene  or  a  cr&ne 
de  volaille,  Marie  Louise. 

Kedzie  chose  the  latter  because  it  was  the  latter.  She 
mumbled : 

"I  think  a  little  cremmy  vly  Marie  Louisa  would  be 
nice." 

She  was  amazed  to  find  later  how  much  it  tasted  like 
chicken  soup. 

"We  don't  want  any  fish,  do  we?"  Ferriday  moaned. 
"Or  do  we?  They  don't  really  understand  the  supreme 
de  sole  a  la  Verdi  here,  so  suppose  we  skip  to  the  roast, 
unless  you  would  risk  the  aigulette  de  pompano,  Coquelin. 
The  last  time  I  had  a  trongon  de  saumon  here  I  had  to 
send  it  back." 

Kedzie  said,  "Let's  skip." 

She  shuddered.  The  word  reminded  her,  as  always,  of 
Skip  Magruder.  She  remembered  how  he  had  hung  over 
the  table  that  far-away  morning  and  recommended 
ham  'n'eggs.  His  dirty  shirt-sleeves  and  his  grin  came 
back  to  her  now.  The  gruesome  Banquo  reminded  her 
so  vividly  of  her  early  guilt  of  plebeiancy  that  she  shivered. 
The  alert  Ferriday  noticed  it  and  called: 

"  Have  that  window  closed  at  once.  There's  an  infernal 
draught  here." 

Kedzie  was  thrilled  at  his  autocratic  manner.  He 
scared  off  the  ghost  of  Magruder. 

Ferriday  pondered  aloud  the  bill  of  fare  as  if  it  were 
the  plot  of  a  new  feature  film. 

"Capon  en  casserole,  milk-fed  guinea-hen  escoffier, 
plover  en  cocotte,  English  golden  pheasant,  partridge — 
do  any  of  those  tiresome  things  interest  you?" 

It  was  like  asking  her  whether  she  would  have  a  Gorham 
tea-set,  a  Balcom  gown,  or  a  Packard  landaulet.  She 
wanted  them  all. 

But  her  eyes  caught  the  prices.  Four  dollars  for  an 

183 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

English  pheasant!  No  wonder  they  called  it  golden. 
It  seemed  a  shame,  though,  to  stick  such  a  nice  man, 
after  he  had  already  ordered  two  dollars  and  a  half's  worth 
of  caviar. 

She  chose  the  cheapest  thing  She  was  already  falling 
in  love  with  Ferriday. 

The  plover  was  only  a  dollar.  She  was  not  quite  sure 
what  kind  of  animal  it  would  turn  out  to  be.  She  had  a 
womanly  intuition  that  it  was  a  fowl  of  some  breed.  She 
wanted  to  know.  She  had  come  to  the  stomach  school. 

"I  think  I'll  take  a  bit  of  the  plover,"  she  said. 

"Nice  girl!"  thought  Ferriday,  who  recognized  her 
vicarious  economy. 

"Plover  it  is,"  he  said  to  the  waiter,  and  added,  "tell 
Pierre  it's  for  me  and  he'd  better  not  burn  it  again." 

The  waiter  was  crushed  by  Pierre's  lapse,  especially  as 
the  chef's  name  was  Achille. 

Ferriday  went  on:  "With  the  plover  we  might  have 
some  champignons  frais  sous  cloche  and  a  salade  de  laitue 
avec  French  dressing,  yes?  Then  a  substantial  sweet: 
a  coupe  aux  marrons  or  a  nesselrode  pudding,  yes?" 

Kedzie  wanted  to  ask  for  a  plain,  familiar  vanilla  ice- 
cream, but  she  knew  better.  She  ordered  the  nesselrode — 
and  got  her  ice-cream,  after  all.  There  were  chest- 
nuts in  it,  too — so  she  was  glad  she  had  not  selected  the 
coupe  aux  marrons. 

Ferriday  did  not  take  a  sweet,  but  had  a  cheese  instead, 
after  an  anxious  debate  with  the  waiter  about  the  health  of 
the  Camembert  and  the  decadence  of  the  Roquefort .  When 
this  weighty  matter  was  settled  he  returned  to  Kedzie : 

"Now  for  something  to  drink.  A  little  sherry  and 
bitters  to  begin  with,  of  course;  and  a — oh,  umm,  let 
me  see — simple  things  are  best;  suppose  we  stick  to 
champagne."  He  called  it  "shah  pine,"  according  to 
Kedzie's  ear,  but  she  hoped  he  meant  shampane.  She 
had  always  wanted  to  taste  "wealthy  water,"  as  Gilfoyle 
called  it,  but  never  called  for  it. 

184 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Kedzie  was  a  trifle  alarmed  when  Ferriday  said:  "I 
hope  you  don't  like  it  sweet.  It  can't  be  too  dry  for  me." 

"Me,  either,"  Kedzie  assured  him — and  made  a  face 
implying  that  she  always  took  it  in  the  form  of  a  powder. 

Ferriday  smiled  benignly  and  said  to  the  waiter:  "You 
might  bring  us  een  boo-tay  de  Bellinger  Nume'ro — er — 
katter — vang — kanz."  He  knew  that  the  French  for 
ninety-five  was  four-twenties-fifteen,  but  the  waiter  could 
not  understand  till  he  placed  his  finger  on  the  number 
with  his  best  French  accent.  He  saved  himself  from  col- 
lapse by  a  stern  post-dictum: 

"Remember,  it's  the  vintage  of  nineteen  hundred.  If 
you  bring  that  loathsome  eighteen  ninety-three  I'll  have 
to  crack  the  bottle  over  your  head.  You  wouldn't  want 
that,  would  you?" 

"Non,  mzoo,  oui,  monioo"  said  the  German  waiter. 

"Then  we'll  have  some  black  coffee  and  a  liqueur — a 
Curacao,  say,  or  a  green  Chartreuse,  or  a  white  mint. 
Which?" 

Naturally  Kedzie  said  the  white  mint,  please. 

With  that  Ferriday  released  the  waiter,  who  hurried 
away,  hoping  that  Ferriday's  affectations  included  ex- 
travagant tips. 

Kedzie  gobbled  prettily  the  food  before  her.  Ferriday 
could  tell  that  she  was  anxiously  watching  and  copying 
his  methods  of  attack.  He  soon  knew  that  this  was  her 
first  real  meal  de  luxe,  but  he  did  not  mind  that.  Colum- 
bus was  not  angry  at  America  because  it  had  never  seen 
an  explorer  before. 

It  delighted  Ferriday  to  think  that  he  had  discovered 
Kedzie.  He  would  say  later  that  he  invented  her.  And 
she  wanted  tremendously  to  be  discovered  or  invented  or 
anything  else,  by  anybody  who  could  find  a  gold-mine  in 
her  somewhere  and  pay  her  a  royalty  on  her  own  mineral 
wealth. 

When  her  lips  met  the  shell-edge  of  the  champagne- 
glass  and  the  essence  of  all  mischief  flung  its  spray  against 

185 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

the  tip  of  her  cleverly  whittled  nose  sne  winced  at  first. 
But  she  went  boldly  back,  and  soon  the  sprites  that 
rained  upward  in  her  glass  were  sending  tiny  balloons  of 
hope  through  her  brain.  They  soared  past  her  small  skull 
and  her  braided  hair  and  the  crown  of  her  hat  and  on  up 
through  the  ceiling,  and  none  of  them  broke — as  yet. 

Her  soul  was  pleasantly  a-simmer  now  and  she  could  not 
tell  whether  the  wine  made  her  exultant  or  she  the  wine. 
But  she  was  sure  that  she  had  at  last  discovered  her  life. 

And  with  it  all  she  was  dreadfully  canny.  She  was 
only  a  little  village  girl  unused  to  city  ways,  and  the 
handsome  city  stranger  was  plying  her  with  wine;  but 
she  was  none  of  your  stencil  figures  that  blot  romance. 

Kedzie  was  thinking  over  the  cold,  hard  precepts  that 
women  acquire  somehow.  She  was  resolving  that  since 
she  was  to  be  as  great  as  he  said  she  should  be,  she  must 
not  cheapen  herself  now. 

Many  of  these  little  village  girls  have  come  to  town 
since  time  was  and  brought  with  them  the  level  heads  of 
icily  wise  women  who  make  love  a  business  and  not 
a  folly.  Many  men  are  keeping  sober  mainly  nowadays 
because  it  is  good  business;  many  women  pure  for  the 
same  reason 

Turkish  sultans  as  fierce  as  Suleiman  the  Magnificent 
have  bought  country  girls  kidnapped  by  slave-merchants 
and  have  bought  tyrants  in  the  bargain.  Ferriday  the 
Magnificent  was  playing  with  holocaust  when  he  set  a 
match  to  Kedzie. 

But  now  she  was  an  attractive  little  flame  and  he 
watched  her  soul  flicker  and  gave  it  fuel.  He  also  gave  it  a 
cigarette;  at  least  he  proffered  her  his  silver  case,  but  she 
shook  her  head. 

"Why  not  ?"  he  asked.  "  All  the  women,  old  and  young, 
are  smoking  here." 

She  tightened  her  plump  lips  and  answered,  "I  don't 
like  'em;  and  they  give  me  the  fidgets." 

"You'll  do!"  he  cried,  softly,  reaching  out  and  clench  - 

186 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

ing  her  knuckles  in  his  palm  a  moment.  "  You're  the  wise 
one!  I  felt  sure  that  pretty  little  face  of  yours  was  only 
a  mask  for  the  ugliest  and  most  valuable  thing  a  woman 
can  possess." 

"What's  that?"  said  Kedzie,  hoping  he  was  not  going 
to  begin  big  talk. 

"Wisdom,"  said  Ferriday.  "A  woman  ought  to  be  as 
wise  as  the  serpent,  but  she  ought  to  have  the  eyes  of  a  dove. 
Your  baby  sweetness  is  worth  a  fortune  on  the  screen 
if  you  have  brains  enough  to  manage  it,  and  I  fancy  you 
have.  Here's  to  you,  Miss  Anita  Adair!" 

He  drank  deep,  but  she  only  touched  the  brim.  She 
saw  that  he  was  drinking  too  much — he  had  had  several 
cocktails  while  he  waited  for  her  to  arrive.  Kedzie  felt 
that  one  of  the  two  must  keep  a  clear  head.  She  found 
that  ice-water  was  a  good  antidote  for  champagne. 

When  Ferriday  sharply  ordered  the  waiter  to  look  to 
her  glass  she  shook  her  head.  When  he  finished  the  bottle 
and  the  waiter  put  it  mouth  down  in  the  ice  as  an  eloquent 
reminder  Ferriday  accepted  the  challenge  and  ordered 
another  bottle.  He  was  just  thickened  of  tongue  enough 
tosay"boddle." 

Kedzie  spoke,  quickly:  "Please,  no.  I  must  go  home. 
It's  later  than  I  thought,  and — " 

"And  Mrs.  Gilfoyle  will  wonder,"  Ferriday  laughed. 
"That's  right,  my  dear.  You've  got  to  keep  good  hours 
if  you  are  going  to  succeethe  on  the  screen.  Early  to  bed, 
for  you  must  early-to-rise.  Gordon,  gar$on,  V addition,  s'il 
vous  please." 

While  he  was  paying  the  bill  Kedzie  was  thinking 
fleetly  of  her  next  problem.  He  would  want  to  take  her 
home  in  his  car,  and  it  would  be  just  her  luck  to  find  her 
husband  on  the  door-step.  In  any  case,  she  was  afraid 
that  Ferriday  would  be  sentimental  and  she  did  not  want 
Ferriday  to  be  sentimental  just  yet.  And  she  would  not 
tolerate  a  sentiment  inspired  or  influenced  by  wine. 
Love  from  a  bottle  is  the  poorest  of  compliments. 

187 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Already  she  was  a  little  disappointed  in  Ferriday. 
He  was  a  great  man,  but  he  had  his  fault,  and  she  had 
found  him  out.  If  he  were  going  to  be  of  use  to  her  she 
must  snub  that  vinous  phase  at  once. 

The  cool  air  outside  seemed  to  gratify  Ferriday  and  he 
took  off  his  hat  while  the  carriage-starter  whistled  up  his 
car.  Now  Kedzie  said: 

"Please,  Mr.  Ferriday,  just  put  me  in  a  taxicab." 

"Nonsense!  I'll  take  you  home.  I'll  certainly  take 
you  home." 

"No,  please;  it's  'way  out  of  your  way,  and  I — I'd 
rather — really  I  would." 

Ferriday  stared  hard  at  her  as  if  she  were  just  a  trifle 
blurred.  He  frowned;  then  he  smiled. 

"Why,  bless  your  soul,  if  you'd  rather  I  wouldn't  op- 
pose you,  I  wouldn't — not  for  worlds.  But  you  sha'n't 
go  home  in  any  old  cabby  taxishab ;  you'll  take  my  wagon 
and  I'll  walk.  The  walk  will  do  me  good." . 

Kedzie  thought  it  would,  too,  so  she  consented  with 
appropriate  reluctance.  He  lifted  her  in  and  closed  the 
door — then  leaned  in  to  laugh: 

"Give  my  love  to  old  Mrs.  Gilfoyle.  And  don't  fail 
to  be  at  the  shudio  bright  and  early.  We'll  have  to  make 
sun  while  the  hay  shines,  you  know.  Good  night,  Miss 
Adair!" 

"Good  night,  Mr.  Ferriday,  and  thank  you  ever  so 
much  for  the  perfectly  lovely  evening." 

" It  has  been  1-1-lovely.     Goo-ood  night!" 

The  car  swept  away  and  made  a  big  turn.  She  saw 
Ferriday  marching  grandiosely  along  the  street,  with  his 
head  bared  to  the  cool  moonlight.  She  settled  back 
and  snuggled  into  the  cushions,  imagining  the  car  her 
very  own. 

She  left  her  glory  behind  her  as  she  climbed  the  long 
stairs,  briskly  preparing  her  lies  and  her  defensive  temper 
for  her  husband's  wrathful  greeting. 

He  was  not  there. 

1 88 


CHAPTER  IX 

"T^EDZIE  had  no  sooner  rejoiced  in  the  fortunate  ab- 
Jl\>  sence  of  her  husband  than  she  began  to  worry 
because  he  was  away.  Where  was  he  and  with  whom? 
She  sat  by  the  window  and  looked  up  and  down  the 
street,  but  she  could  find  none  among  the  pedestrians 
who  looked  like  her  possessor.  She  forgot  him  in  the 
beauty  of  the  town — all  black  velvet  and  diamonds. 

Once  more  she  sat  with  her  window  open  toward  her 
Jerusalem  and  worshiped  the  holy  city  of  her  desire. 
That  night  at  the  Biltmore  she  was  an  ignorant  country- 
town  girl  who  had  never  had  anything.  Now  she  had 
had  a  good  deal,  including  a  husband.  But,  strangely, 
there  was  just  as  much  to  long  for  as  before — more,  in- 
deed, for  she  knew  more  things  to  want. 

As  the  scientist  finds  in  every  new  discovery  a  new  dark 
continent,  in  each  atom  a  universe,  so  Kedzie  found  from 
each  acquired  desire  infinite  new  desires  radiating  fanwise 
to  the  horizon  and  beyond. 

At  first  she  had  wanted  to  know  the  town — now  she 
wanted  to  be  known  by  the  town.  Then  her  father  stood 
in  her  way;  now,  her  husband.  She  had  eloped  from  her 
parents  with  ease  and  they  had  never  found  her  again. 
She  had  succeeded  in  being  lost. 

She  did  not  want  to  be  lost  any  more ;  but  she  was  lost, 
utterly  nobody  to  anybody  that  mattered.  Now  was 
her  chance,  but  she  could  not  run  away  from  her  husband 
and  get  famous  without  his  finding  her.  If  he  found  her 
he  would  spoil  her  fun  and  her  fame.  She  did  not  know 
how  many  public  favorites  are  married,  how  many 

189 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

matinee  idols  are  managed  by  their  wives.  She  had  never 
heard  of  the  prima  donna's  husband. 

She  fell  asleep  among  her  worries.  She  was  awakened 
by  the  noisy  entrance  of  her  spouse.  He  was  hardly 
recognizable.  She  thought  at  first  that  her  eyes  were 
bleary  with  sleep,  but  it  was  his  face  that  was  bleary. 
He  was  what  a  Flagg  caricature  of  him  would  be,  with 
the  same  merciless  truth  in  the  grotesque. 

Kedzie  had  never  seen  him  boozy  before.  She  groaned, 
expressively,  "My  Gawd!  you're  pie-eyed." 

He  sang  an  old  song,  "The  girl  guessed  right  the  very 
first  time,  very  firstime,  verfirstime." 

He  tried  to  take  her  into  his  arms.  She  slapped  his 
hands  away.  He  laughed  and  flopped  into  a  chair,  giggling. 
She  studied  him  with  almost  more  interest  than  repug- 
nance. He  was  idiotically  jovial,  as  sly  as  an  idiot  and 
as  inscrutable. 

Without  waiting  to  be  asked  he  began  a  recital  of  his 
chronicles.  He  was  as  evidently  concealing  certain  things 
as  boasting  of  others.  Kedzie  rather  hoped  he  had  done 
something  to  conceal,  since  that  would  be  an  atonement 
for  her  own  subtleties. 

"I  have  been  in  Bohemia,"  he  said,  "zhenuine  old 
Bohemia  where  hearts  are  true  and  eyes  are  blue  and 
ev'body  loves  ev'body  else.  Down  there  a  handclasp  is  a 
pledzh  of  loyalty.  There's  no  hypocrisy  in  Bohemia — not 
a  dambit.  No,  sirree.  The  idle  rish  with  their  shnob- 
beries  and  worship  of  mere-mere  someshing  or  oth'  have 
no  place  in  Bohemia,  for  in  Bohemia  hearsh  are  true  and 
wine  is  blue  and — " 

"Oh,  shut  up!"  said  Kedzie. 

"Thass  way  you're  always  repressin'  me.  You're  a 
hopeless  Philisterine.  But  I  have  no  intentions  of  shuttin' 
up,  my  darlin'  Anita — Anita —  Shh!  shh!" 

He  was  hushing  himself.  He  was  very  patently  remem- 
bering something  and  conspicuously  warning  himself  not 
to  divulge  it.  Kedzie  loathed  him  too  much  to  care. 

190 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Now  that  he  was  safely  housed  he  ceased  to  interest  her. 
She  went  to  bed.  He  spiraled  into  a  chair  to  meditate  his 
wickedness.  He  felt  that  he  was  as  near  to  being  a 
hypocrite  as  was  possible  in  Bohemia. 

He  had  met  two  talented  ladies  at  the  dinner,  one  was  a 
sculptress  from  Mr.  Samuel  Merwin's  Washington  Square 
and  the  other  was  a  paintress  from  Mr.  Owen  Johnson's 
Lincoln  Square.  Neither  lady  had  had  any  work  accepted 
by  the  Academy  or  bought  by  a  dealer.  Both  were  con- 
sequently as  fierce  against  intrenched  art  as  Gilfoyle  was 
against  intrenched  capital  and  literature. 

They  were  there  in  the  company  of  two  writers.  One 
of  these  could  not  get  anything  published  at  all  except  in 
the  toy  magazines,  which  paid  little  and  late  and  died 
early.  The  other  writer  could  get  published,  but  not  sold. 
Both  were  young  and  needed  only  to  pound  their  irons 
on  the  anvil  to  get  them  hot,  but  they  blamed  the  world 
for  being  cold  to  true  art.  In  time  they  would  make  the 
sparks  fly  and  would  be  in  their  turn  assailed  as  mere 
blacksmiths  by  the  next  line  of  younger  apprentices. 
They  were  at  present  in  the  same  stage  as  any  other  new 
business — they  were  building  up  custom  in  a  neighborhood 
of  strangers. 

But  at  present  they  were  suppressed,  all  four,  men 
and  women;  suppressed  and  smothered  as  next  June's 
flowers  and  weeds  are  held  back  by  the  conspiracy  of 
December's  snows  and  the  harsh  criticisms  of  March. 

The  sculptress's  first  name  was  Marguerite  and  Gilfoyle 
longed  to  call  her  by  it,  after  his  second  goblet  of  claret- 
and-water.  He  had  a  passion  for  first  names.  He  had  the 
quick  enthusiasm  of  a  lawyer  or  an  advertising-man  for  a 
new  client.  Before  he  quite  realized  the  enormity  of  his 
perfidy  he  was  pretending  to  compose  a  poem  to  Mar- 
guerite. He  wrote  busily  on  an  old  bill  of  fare  which  had 
already  been  persecuted  by  an  artist  or  two.  And  he 
wrote  his  Anita  poem  over  again  in  Marguerite's  honor, 
mutatis  mutandis. 

191 


Pretty  maid,  pretty  maid,  may  I  say  Marguerita? 
Your  last  name  is  sweet,  but  your  first  name  is  sweeter. 

And  so  on  to  the  bitter  end. 

He  slipped  the  lyric  to  Marguerite  and  she  read  it  with 
squeals  of  delight,  while  Gilfoyle  looked  as  modest  as  such 
a  genius  could.  The  other  girl  had  to  read  it,  of  course, 
while  Gilfoyle  tried  to  look  unconscious.  He  was  as  suc- 
cessful as  one  is  who  tries  to  hold  a  casual  expression  for  a 
photograph. 

The  other  girl's  reward  was  a  shrug  and  the  diluted  claret 
of  a  "Very  nice !"  Gilfoyle  said,  "You're  no  judge  or  else 
you're  jealous."  The  two  men  read  it,  and  said,  "  Mush !" 
and  "Slushgusher!"  but  Marguerite's  eyes  belonged  to 
Gilfoyle  the  rest  of  the  evening,  also  her  hands  now  and 
then. 

Remembering  this,  Gilfoyle  was  uneasy.  One  ought  to 
be  careful  to  keep  an  aseptic  memory  at  home.  Yet  if 
this  was  not  infidelity,  what  would  be?  In  a  rich  man 
Gilfoyle  would  have  called  it  a  typical  result  of  the  evil 
influence  of  wealth.  In  the  absence  of  wealth  it  was  a  gay 
little  Pierrot-perfidy  of  the  vie  de  Boheme.  Still,  poets 
have  to  be  like  that.  An  actor  must  make  love  to  what- 
ever leading  lady  confronts  him,  and  so  must  poets,  the 
lawyers  and  press  agents  of  love. 

But  when  he  got  home  Gilfoyle  repented  as  he  remem- 
bered. He  suffered  on  a  rack  of  guilty  bliss,  but  he  man- 
aged to  hold  back  the  secret  which  was  bubbling  up  in 
him  with  a  bromo-seltzer  effervescence.  Incidentally  his 
"pretty  maid,  pretty  maid,  Marguerite"  had  kept  back 
the  fact  that  she  had  a  husband  in  the  hardware  business 
in  Terre  Haute.  What  the  husband  was  keeping  back  is 
none  of  this  history's  business. 

It  was  all  as  old  and  unoriginal  as  original  sin.  The 
important  thing  to  Kedzie  was  the  fact  that  shortly  after 
the  poem  had  been  revamped  a  stranger  had  joined,  first 
in  song  with  Gilfoyle's  table-load  and  then  in  conversation. 

192 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

He  had  ended  by  introducing  his  companion  and  bringing 
her  over.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  fine  democracy  of 
Bohemia  they  would  have  cut  the  creature  dead.  She 
was  a  buyer,  one  of  Miss  Ferber's  Emma  McChesneys  on 
a  lark. 

Gilfoyle  did  not  tell  Kedzie  any  of  this.  He  told  what 
followed  as  he  toiled  at  the  fearfully  complicated  problem 
of  his  shoe-laces,  a  problem  rendered  almost  insuperable 
by  the  fact  that  he  could  not  hold  his  foot  high  very  long 
and  dared  not  hold  his  head  low  at  all. 

"Wonnerful  thing  happent  t'night,  Anita.  Just  shows 
you  never  know  where  your  lucksh  goin'  to  hit  you.  I'm 
down  there  with — er — er — couple  of  old  frensh,  you  know, 
and  who  comes  over  to  our  table  but  big  feller  from 
out  Wesh — Chicago — Chicago —  Gobbless  Ch'cag!  His 
name  is  entitled  Deshler.  In  coursh  conv'sation  I  men- 
tion Breathasweeta  Shewing  Gum — see  ? — he  says  he  knew 
that  gum  and  he'd  sheen  the  advershments,  bes'  ol'  ad- 
vershments  ever  sheen,  thass  what  Mr.  Beshler  said  and 
I'm  not  lyin'  to  you,  Anita.  No,  sir. 

"Whereupon — whereupon  I  modes'ly  remark,  'Of 
course  they're  clever — nashurally  they're  clever,  because 
they  were  written  by  1'i'l  Mr.  ME !'  He  says,  '  You  really 
wrote  'em?'  and  I  say,  'I  roally  wretem!'  And  Mr. 
Keshler  says,  'Well,  I'll  be  g'dam'.'  Then  he  says,  'Who 
coined  that  name  Breathasweeta?'  And  I  says,  'I  did!' 
and  he  says,  'Well,  I'll  be  g'dam'!' 

"Anyway,  to  make  long  shory  stort,  Mr.  Nestor  he 
says,  'What  you  doin'  now?  Writen  copy  for  the  Kaiser 
or  the  K-zar?'  and  I  says,  'I  am  a  gen'leman  of  leisure,' 
and  he  says,  '  There's  a  good  job  waitin'  fer  lad  your  size 
out  in  Ch'cag!  Would  you  come  'way  out  there?'  and 
I  says,  '  I  fear  nothing !' 

"So  Mr.  Zeisselberg  wrote  his  name  on  a  card,  and  if  I 

haven't  los'  card,  or  he  doesn't  change  his  old  mind,  I  am 

now  Mr.  John  J.  Job  of  Chicago.     And  now  I  got  a 

unsolishited  posish — imposishible  solishion — solution — un- 

13  193 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

polusion  solishible — you  know  what  I  mean.  So  kiss 
me!" 

Kedzie  escaped  the  kiss,  but  she  asked,  with  a  sleepy 
eagerness,  "  Did  you  tell  him  you  were  married?" 

"Nashur'ly  not,  my  dear.  It  was  stric'ly  business 
conv'sation.  I  didn'  ask  him  how  many  shildren  he  had 
and  he  didn'  ask  me  if  I  was  a  Benedictine  or  a — or  a  pony 
of  brandy — thass  pretty  good.  Hope  I  can  rememmer 
it  to-mor'." 

Kedzie  smiled,  but  not  at  his  boozy  pun.  She  seemed 
more  comfortable.  She  fell  asleep.  Next  to  being  inno- 
cent, being  absolved  is  the  most  soothing  of  sensations. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  next  morning  that  parrot,  still  unmurdered,  woke 
Kedzie  early.  She  buried  one  ear  deep  in  the  pillow 
and  covered  the  other  with  her  hair  and  her  hand.  The 
parrot's  voice  receded  to  a  distance,  but  a  still  smaller 
voice  began  to  call  to  her.  She  was  squirming  deeper  for 
a  long  snooze  when  her  foot  struck  another. 

Her  husband! — King  Log,  audibly  a-slumber.  She 
pouted  drowsily,  frowned,  slid  away,  and  tried  to  commit 
temporary  suicide  by  drowning  herself  in  sleep. 

Then  her  stupor  faded  as  the  tiny  call  resounded  again 
in  her  soul.  She  was  no  longer  merely  Mrs.  Anita  Gilfoyle, 
the  flat-dwelling  nobody.  She  was  now  Anita  Adair,  the 
screen-queen.  She  was  needed  at  the  studio. 

She  sat  up,  looked  at  her  husband,  her  unacknowledged 
and  unacknowledging  husband.  A  mysterious  voice  drew 
her  from  his  side  as  cogently  as  the  hand  of  Yahweh  drew 
the  rib  that  became  a  woman  from  under  the  elbow  of 
Adam. 

She  rose  and  looked  back  and  down  at  the  man  whom 
the  law  had  united  her  with  indissolubly.  Eve  must  have 
wondered  back  at  Adam  with  the  same  sense  of  escape 
while  he  lay  asleep.  According  to  one  of  the  conflicting 
legends  of  the  two  gods  of  Genesis,  woman  was  then 
actually  one  with  man.  Marriage  has  ever  since  been  an 
effort  to  put  her  back  among  his  ribs,  but  she  has  always 
refused  to  be  intercostal.  It  is  an  ancient  habit  to  pre- 
tend that  she  is,  and  sometimes  she  pretends  to  snuggle 
into  place.  Yet  she  has  never  been,  can  never  be,  re- 
ribbed — especially  not  since  marriage  is  an  attempt  to 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

fit  her  into  the  anatomy  of  an  Adam  who  is  always,  in 
a  sense,  a  stranger  to  her. 

Kedzie  gazed  on  her  Adam  with  a  sense  of  departure, 
of  farewell.  She  felt  a  trifle  sorry  for  Gilfoyle,  and  the 
moment  she  resolved  to  quit  him  he  became  a  little  more 
attractive. 

There  was  something  pitiful  about  his  helpless  sprawl: 
his  very  awkwardness  endeared  him  infmitesimally.  She 
nearly  felt  that  tenderness  which  good  wives  and  fond 
mothers  feel  for  the  gawky  creatures  they  hallow  with 
their  devotion. 

Kedzie  leaned  forward  to  kiss  the  poor  wretch  good-by, 
but,  unfortunately  (or  fortunately),  a  restlessness  seized 
him,  he  rolled  over  on  his  other  side,  and  one  limp,  floppy 
hand  struck  Kedzie  on  the  nose. 

She  sprang  back  with  a  gasp  of  pain  and  hurried  away, 
feeling  abused  and  exiled. 

At  the  studio  she  was  received  by  Garfinkel  with  dis- 
tinction. Ferriday  came  out  to  meet  her  with  a  shining 
morning  face  and  led  her  to  the  office  of  the  two  backers. 

A  contract  was  waiting  for  her  and  the  pen  and  ink  were 
handy.  Kedzie  had  never  seen  a  contract  before  and  she 
was  as  afraid  of  this  one  as  if  it  were  her  death  warrant. 
It  was  her  life  warrant,  rather.  She  tried  to  read  it  as 
if  she  had  signed  dozens  of  contracts,  but  she  fooled  no- 
body. She  could  not  make  head  or  tail  of  "the  party  of 
the  first  part"  and  the  terms  exacted  of  movie  actors. 
She  understood  nothing  but  the  salary.  One  hundred 
dollars  a  week!  That  bloomed  like  a  rose  in  the  crabbed 
text.  She  would  have  signed  almost  anything  for  that. 

The  deed  was  finally  done.  Her  hundred-odd  pounds 
of  flesh  belonged  to  the  Hyperfilm  Company.  The 
partners  gave  her  their  short,  warm  hands.  Ferriday 
wrung  her  palm  with  his  long,  lean  fingers.  Then  he 
caught  her  by  the  elbow  and  whisked  her  into  his  studio. 
He  began  to  describe  her  first  scene  in  the  big  production. 
The  backers  had  insisted  that  she  prove  her  ability  as  a 

196 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

minor  character  in  a  play  featuring  another  woman. 
Kedzie  did  not  mind,  especially  when  Ferriday  winked 
and  whispered:  "We'll  make  you  make  her  look  like 
something  the  cat  brought  in.  First  of  all,  those  gowns 
of  yours — " 

She  had  told  him  of  her  ill  luck  the  day  before  in  finding 
Lady  Powell-Carewe  out.  He  sent  her  flying  down  again 
in  his  limousine.  She  stepped  into  it  now  with  assurance. 
It  was  beginning  to  be  her  very  own.  At  least  she  was 
beginning  to  own  the  owner. 

She  felt  less  excitement  about  the  ride  now  that  it  was 
not  her  first.  She  noticed  that  the  upholstery  was  frayed 
in  spots.  Other  cars  passed  hers.  The  chauffeur  was  not 
so  smart  as  some  of  the  drivers.  And  he  was  alone. 
On  a  few  of  the  swagger  limousines  there  were  two  men 
in  livery  on  the  box.  She  felt  rather  ashamed  of  having 
only  one. 

Her  haughty  discontent  fell  from  her  when  she  arrived 
at  Lady  Powell-Carewe's  shop.  She  wished  she  had  not 
come  alone.  She  did  not  know  how  to  behave.  And 
what  in  Heaven's  name  did  you  call  her — "Your  Lady- 
ship" or  "Your  Majesty"  or  what? 

She  walked  in  so  meekly  and  was  so  simply  clad  that 
nobody  in  the  place  paid  any  heed  to  her  at  first.  It  was 
a  very  busy  place,  with  girls  rushing  to  and  fro  or  saunter- 
ing limberly  up  and  down  in  tremendously  handsome 
gowns. 

Kedzie  could  not  pick  out  Lady  Powell-Carewe.  One 
of  the  promenaders  was  so  tall  and  so  haughty  that 
Kedzie  thought  she  must  be  at  least  a  "Lady."  She 
was  in  a  silvery,  shimmery  green-and-gray  gown,  and  the 
man  whom  the  customers  called  "Mr.  Charles"  said: 

"Madame  calls  this  the  Blown  Poplar.  Isn't  it 
bully'" 

Kedzie  caught  Mr.  Charles's  eye.  He  spoke  to  her 
sharply : 

"Well?" 

197 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

He  evidently  thought  her  somebody  looking  for  a  job  as 
bundle-carrier.  She  was  pretty,  but  there  were  tons  of 
pretty  girls.  They  bored  Mr.  Charles  to  death.  He  had 
a  whole  beagle-pack  of  them  to  care  for. 

Kedzie  poked  at  him  Ferriday's  letter  of  introduction 
addressed  to  Lady  Powell-Care  we.  Mr.  Charles  took  it 
and,  not  knowing  what  it  contained,  bore  it  into  the 
other  room  without  asking  Kedzie  to  sit  down. 

He  reappeared  at  the  door  and  bowed  to  her  with  great 
amazement.  She  slipped  into  a  chaotic  room  where  there 
were  heaps  of  fabrics  thrown  about  like  rubbish,  long 
streamers  of  samples  littering  a  desk  full  of  papers. 

A  sumptuous  creature  of  stately  manner  bowed  creakily 
to  Kedzie,  and  Kedzie  said,  trying  to  remember  the  pro- 
nunciation: 

' '  Lady  Pole-Carrier  ? ' ' 

A  little  plainly  dressed  woman  replied:  "Yes,  my  child. 
So  you're  the  Adair  thing  that  Ferriday  is  gone  half- 
witted over.  He's  just  been  talking  my  ear  off  about  you. 
Sit  down.  Stop  where  you  are.  Let  me  see  you.  Turn 
around.  I  see."  She  turned  to  the  stately  dame. 
"Rather  nice,  isn't  she,  Mrs.  Congdon?  H'mm!"  She 
beckoned  Kedzie  to  come  close.  "What  are  your  eyes 
like?"  She  lorgnetted  the  terrified  girl,  as  if  she  were 
a  throat-specialist.  "Take  off  that  horrid  hat.  Let 
me  see  your  hair.  H'mm!  Rather  nice  hair,  isn't  it, 
Mrs.  Congdon? — that  is,  if  she  knew  how  to  do  it.  Let 
me  see.  Yes,  I  get  your  color,  but  it  will  be  a  job  to 
suit  you  and  that  infernal  movie-camera.  It  kills  my 
colors  so!  I  have  to  keep  remembering  that  crimson 
photographs  black  and  cream  is  dirty,  and  blue  and  yellow 
are  just  nothing." 

Mr.  Charles  came  in  to  say  that  Mrs.  Noxon  was  out- 
side. Kedzie  recognized  the  great  name  with  terror. 
Lady  Powell-Carewe  snapped: 

"Tell  the  old  camel  I'm  ill.  I  can't  see  ner  to-day. 
I'm  ill  to  everybody  to-day.  I've  taken  a  big  job  on." 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

This  was  sublime.  To  have  aristocrats  turned  away 
for  her! 

While  Madame  prowled  among  the  fabrics  and  bit  her 
lorgnon  in  study,  Kedzie  looked  over  the  big  albums  filled 
with  photographs  of  the  creations  of  the  great  creatrix. 
For  Lady  Powell-Carewe  was  a  creative  artist,  taking  her 
ideas  where  she  found  them  in  art  or  nature,  and  in  re- 
vivals and  in  inventions.  She  took  her  color  schemes 
from  paintings,  old  and  new,  from  jewels,  landscapes. 
It  was  said  that  she  went  to  Niagara  to  study  the  floods 
of  color  that  tumble  over  its  brink. 

She  began  to  interest  herself  in  Kedzie,  to  wish  to  ac- 
complish more  than  the  mere  selling  of  dress  goods  made 
up.  She  decided  to  create  Kedzie  as  well  as  her  clothes. 

''Do  you  wear  that  pout  all  the  time?"  she  asked. 

"Do  I  pout?"  Kedzie  asked,  in  an  amazement. 

"Don't  pretend  that  you  don't  know  it  and  do  it  in- 
tentionally. Also  why  do  you  Americans  always  answer 
a  question  by  asking  another?" 

"Do  we?"  said  Kedzie. 

Lady  Powell-Carewe  decided  that  Kedzie  was  as  short 
on  brains  as  she  was  long  on  looks.  But  it  was  tfte  looks 
that  Lady  Powell-Carewe  was  going  to  dress,  and  not 
the  brains. 

She  ordered  Kedzie  to  spend  a  lot  of  money  having  her 
hair  cared  for  expertly. 

She  tried  various  styles  on  Kedzie,  ordering  her  to  throw 
off  her  frock  and  stand  in  her  combination  while  Mrs. 
Congdon  and  Mr.  Charles  brought  up  armloads  of  silks 
and  velvets  and  draped  them  on  Kedzie  as  if  she  were  a 
clothes-horse. 

The  feel  of  the  crisp  and  whispering  taffetas,  the  ele- 
vation of  the  brocades,  the  warm  nothingness  of  the  chif- 
fons like  wisps  of  fog,  the  rich  dignity  of  the  cloths,  gave 
Kedzie  rapture  on  rapture.  Standing  there  with  a 
burden  of  fabrics  upon  her  and  Lady  Powell-Carewe 
kneeling  at  her  feet  pinning  them  up  and  tucking  them 

199 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

here  and  there,  Kedzie  was  reminded  of  those  ancient 
days  of  six  months  gone  when  her  mother  used  to  kneel 
about  her  and  fit  on  her  the  home-made  school-dress  cut 
according  to  Butterick  patterns.  Now  Kedzie  had  a 
genuine  Lady  at  her  feet.  It  was  a  triumph  indeed.  It 
was  not  hard  now  to  believe  that  she  would  have  all  the 
world  at  her  feet  one  day. 

Lady  Powell-Care  we  used  Kedzie 's  frame  as  a  mere 
standard  to  fly  banners  from.  Leaving  the  head  and 
shoulders  to  stand  out  like  the  wax  bust  of  a  wistful  doll, 
she  started  a  cloud  of  fabric  about  her  in  the  most  extrav- 
agant fashion.  She  reined  it  in  sharply  at  the  waist,  but 
again  it  flared  to  such  distances  on  all  sides  that  Kedzie 
could  never  have  sailed  through  any  door  but  that  of  a 
garage  without  compression. 

On  this  vast  bell  of  silk  she  hung  streamers  of  rosettes, 
flowers  of  colors  that  would  have  been  strident  if  they 
had  been  the  eighteenth  of  a  shade  stronger.  As  it  was, 
they  were  as  delicious  as  cream  curdled  in  a  syrup  of 
cherries.  The  whole  effect  would  have  been  burlesque 
if  it  had  not  been  the  whim  of  a  brilliant  taste.  Men 
would  look  it  at  and  say,  "Good  Lord!"  Women  would 
murmur,  enviously,  "Oh,  Lord!"  Kedzie's  soul  expanded 
to  the  ultimate  fringe  of  the  farthest  furbelow. 

When  the  fantasy  was  assured  Lady  Powell-Carewe  had 
Kedzie  extracted  from  it.  Then  pondering  her  sapling 
slenderness,  once  more  she  caught  from  the  air  an  inspira- 
tion. She  would  incase  Kedzie  in  a  sheath  of  soft,  white 
lad  marked  with  delicate  lines  and  set  off  with  black 
gloves  and  a  hat  of  green  leaves.  And  this  she  would  call 
"The  White  Birch." 

And  that  was  all  the  creating  she  felt  up  to  for  the  day. 
She  had  Kedzie's  measure  taken  in  order  to  have  a  slip 
made  as  a  model  for  use  in  the  hours  when  Kedzie  should 
be  too  busy  to  stand  for  fitting. 

It  was  well  for  Kedzie  that  there  was  a  free  ride  waiting 
for  her.  Her  journey  to  the  studio  was  harrowed  by  the 

200 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

financial  problem  which  has  often  tortured  people  in 
limousines.  She  did  not  like  to  ask  Mr.  Ferriday  for 
money  in  advance.  He  might  think  she  was  poor. 
There  is  nothing  that  bankrupts  the  poor  so  much  as  the 
effort  to  look  unconcerned  while  they  wait  for  their  next 
penny. 

Kedzie  was  frantic  with  worry  and  was  reduced  to 
prayer.  "O  Lord,  send  me  some  money  somehow."  The 
number  of  such  prayers  going  up  to  heaven  must  cause 
some  embarrassment,  since  money  can  usually  be  given  to 
one  person  only  by  taking  it  from  another — and  that  other 
is  doubtless  praying  for  more  at  the  very  moment. 

To  Kedzie's  dismay,  when  she  arrived  at  the  studio  and 
asked  for  Mr.  Ferriday,  Mr.  Garfmkel  appeared.  He  was 
very  deferential,  but  he  was,  after  all,  only  a  Garfinkel 
and  she  needed  a  Ferriday.  He  explained  that  his  chief 
was  very  busy  and  had  instructed  Garfinkel  to  teach  Miss 
Adair  the  science  of  make-up  for  the  camera,  to  take  test 
pictures  of  her,  and  give  her  valuable  hints  in  lens  be- 
havior. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  Ferriday  came  in  to  see  the  result 
of  the  first  lesson.  He  said,  "Much  obliged,  Garfinkel," 
and  Garfinkel  remembered  pressing  duty  elsewhere. 

His  departure  left  Kedzie  alone  with  Ferriday  in  a 
cavern  pitch  black  save  for  the  cone  of  light  spreading  from 
the  little  hole  in  the  wall  at  the  back  to  the  screen  where 
the  spray  of  light-dust  became  living  pictures  of  Kedzie. 

Kedzie  did  not  know  that  the  operator  behind  the  wall 
could  peek  and  peer  while  his  picture-wheel  rolled  out  the 
cataract  of  photographs.  Ferriday  was  careful  of  her — 
or  of  himself.  He  held  her  hand,  of  course,  and  murmured 
to  her  how  stunning  she  was,  but  he  made  no  effort  to 
make  love,  to  her  great  comfort  and  regret. 

At  length  he  invited  her  to  ride  home  in  his  limousine, 
but  he  did  not  invite  her  to  dinner.  She  told  herself  that 
she  would  have  had  to  decline.  But  she  would  have 
liked  to  be  asked. 

201 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

While  he  rhapsodized  once  more  about  her  future  she 
was  thinking  of  her  immediate  penury.  As  she  ap- 
proached the  street  of  her  residence  she  realized  that  she 
must  either  starve  till  pay-day  or  borrow.  It  was  a  bad 
beginning,  but  better  than  a  hopeless  ending.  After 
several  gasps  of  hesitation  she  finally  made  her  plea: 

"I'm  awfully  sorry  to  have  to  trouble  you,  Mr.  Ferriday, 
but  I'm —  Well,  could  you  lend  me  twenty-five  dollars?" 

"My  dear  child,  take  fifty,"  he  cried. 

She  shook  her  head,  but  it  hurt  her  to  see  the  roll  of 
bills  he  dived  for  and  brought  up,  and  the  careless  grace 
with  which  he  peeled  two  leaves  from  the  cabbage.  Easy 
money  is  always  attended  with  resentment  that  more  did 
not  come  along.  Kedzie  pouted  at  her  folly  in  not  ac- 
cepting the  fifty.  If  she  had  said,  "Lend  me  fifty,"  he 
would  have  offered  her  a  hundred.  But  the  twenty-five 
was  salvation,  and  it  would  buy  her  food  enough  to  keep 
her  and  her  useless  husband  alive,  and  to  buy  her  a  pair  of 
shoes  and  some  gloves. 

As  the  car  drew  near  her  corner  she  cried  that  she  had 
some  shopping  to  do  and  escaped  again  at  the  drug-store. 

She  found  her  husband  at  home.  There  was  an  un- 
wonted authority  about  his  greeting : 

"Well,  young  woman,  you  may  approach  and  kiss  my 
hand.  I  am  a  gentleman  with  a  job.  I  am  a  Chicago 
gentleman  with  a  job." 

"You  don't  mean  it!"  Kedzie  gasped;  and  kissed  him 
from  habit  with  more  respect  than  her  recent  habit  had 
shown. 

"I  mean  it,"  said  Gilfoyle.  "I  am  now  on  the  staff 
of  the  Deshler  Advertising  Agency.  I  was  afraid  when 
Mr.  D.  offered  me  an  unsolicited  position  (he  could  say 
it  to-day)  that  it  was  the  red  wine  and  not  the  real  money 
that  was  talking,  but  he  was  painfully  sober  this  noon, 
took  me  out  to  lunch,  and  told  me  that  he  would  be  proud 
to  avail  himself  of  my  services." 

"Splendid!"  said  Kedzie,  with  sincere  enthusiasm.  It 
202 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

is  always  pleasant  to  learn  that  money  is  setting  toward 
the  family. 

But  something  told  Kedzie  that  her  late  acquisition  of 
twenty-five  dollars  would  not  be  with  her  long.  Easy 
come,  easy  go.  "How  much  is  the  fare  to  Chicago?" 
she  asked,  in  a  hollow  voice. 

"Twenty-two  dollars  is  the  fare,"  said  Gilfoyle,  "with 
about  eight  dollars  extra.  I  couldn't  borrow  a  cent.  I've 
got  only  five  dollars." 

"I  thought  so,"  said  Kedzie. 

"Thought  what  so?"  said  Gilfoyle. 

"Nothing,"  said  Kedzie.  "Well,  I  happen  to  have 
twenty-five  dollars." 

"That's  funny,"  said  Gilfoyle.  "Where  did  you  get 
it?" 

"Oh,  I  saved  it  up." 

"From  what?" 

"Well,  do  you  want  the  twenty-five,  or  don't  you?" 

Gilfoyle  pondered.  If  he  questioned  the  source  of  the 
money  he  might  find  it  out,  and  be  unable  to  accept  it. 
He  wanted  the  money  more  than  the  hazardous  informa- 
tion ;  so  he  said : 

"Of  course  I  want  the  twenty-five,  darling,  but  I  hate 
to  rob  you.  Of  course  I'll  send  for  you  as  soon  as  I  can 
make  a  nest  out  there,  but  how  will  you  get  along?" 

"Oh,  I'll  get  along,"  said  Kedzie;  "there'll  be  some 
movie-money  coming  to  me  Saturday." 

"Well,  that's  fine,"  Gilfoyle  said,  feeling  a  weight  of 
horrible  guilt  mingled  with  superior  wings  of  relief. 
He  hesitated,  hemmed,  hawed,  perspired,  and  finally 
looked  to  that  old  source  of  so  many  escapes,  his  watch. 
"There's  a  train  at  eight-two;  I  could  just  about  make 
it  if  I  scoot  now." 

"You'd  better  scoot,"  said  Kedzie.  And  she  gave  him 
the  money. 

"I'd  like  to  have  dinner  with  you,"  Gilfoyle  faltered, 
"but—" 

203 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"  Yes,  I'd  like  to  have  you,  but—" 

They  looked  at  each  other  wretchedly.  Their  love 
was  so  lukewarm  already  that  they  bothered  each  other. 
There  was  no  impulse  to  the  delicious  bitter-sweet  of  a 
passionate  farewell.  She  was  as  eager  to  have  him  gone 
as  he  to  go,  and  each  blamed  the  other  for  that. 

"I'll  write  you  every  day,"  he  said,  "and  I'll  send  the 
fare  to  you  as  soon  as  I  can  get  it." 

"Yes,  of  course,"  Kedzie  mumbled.  "Well,  good-by 
— don't  miss  your  train,  darling." 

"Good-by,  honey." 

They  had  to  embrace.  Their  arms  went  out  about  each 
other  and  clasped  behind  each  other's  backs.  Then  some 
impulse  moved  them  to  a  fierce  clench  of  desperate  sorrow. 
They  were  embracing  their  dead  loves,  the  corpses  that  lay 
dead  in  these  alienated  bodies.  It  was  an  embrace  across 
a  grave,  and  they  felt  the  thud  of  clods  upon  their  love. 

They  gasped  with  the  pity  of  it,  and  Kedzie's  eyes  were 
reeking  with  tears  and  Gilfoyle's  lips  were  shivering  when 
they  wrenched  out  of  that  lock  of  torment. 

He  caught  her  back  to  him  and  kissed  her  salt-sweet 
mouth.  Her  kiss  was  brackish  on  his  lips  as  life  was. 
She  felt  a  kind  of  assault  in  the  fervor  of  his  kiss,  but  she 
did  not  resist.  He  was  a  stranger  who  sprang  at  her 
from  the  dark,  but  he  was  also  very  like  a  poet  she  had 
loved  poetically  long,  long  ago. 

Then  they  wrung  hands  and  called  good-bys  and  he 
caught  up  his  suit-case  and  rushed  through  the  door. 

She  hung  from  the  window  to  wave  to  him  as  he  ran 
down  the  street  to  the  Subway,  pausing  now  and  again 
to  wave  to  her  vaguely,  then  stumbling  on  his  course. 

At  last  she  could  not  see  him,  whether  for  the  tears  or 
for  the  distance,  and  she  bowed  her  head  on  her  lonely  sill 
and  wept. 

She  had  a  splendid  cry  that  flushed  her  heart  clean  as 
a  new  whistle.  She  washed  her  eyes  with  fine  cold  water 
and  half  sobbed,  half  laughed,  "Well,  that's  over." 

204 


CHAPTER   XI 

/CHARITY  COE  CHEEVER  was  making  less  progress 
\^*  with  her  amateur  movie-show  than  Kedzie  with  her 
professional  cinematic  career. 

Charity  telephoned  to  ask  Jim  Dyckman  to  act,  but  he 
proved  to  be  camera-shy  and  intractable. 

She  had  difficulties  with  all  her  cast.  It  was  impossible 
to  satisfy  the  people  who  were  willing  to  act  with  the  rdles 
they  were  willing  to  assume. 

Charity  was  lunching  at  the  Ritz-Carlton  with  Mrs. 
Noxon  when  she  saw  Jim  Dyckman  come  in  with  his 
mother.  Mrs.  Noxon  left  Charity  and  went  over  to 
speak  to  Mrs.  Dyckman.  So  Charity  beckoned  Jim 
over  and  urged  him  to  accept  the  job  of  impresario. 

He  protested,  but  she  pleaded  for  his  help  at  least  on 
an  errand  or  two. 

"Jim,  I  want  you  to  go  up  to  the  studio  of  these  people 
and  find  this  great  man  Ferriday  and  get  him  to  promise 
to  direct  for  us.  And  by  the  way,  that  little  girl  you 
pulled  out  of  the  pool,  you  know — well,  they  promised  to 
get  her  a  job  at  the  studio.  You  look  her  up  and  find 
out  how  she's  doing — there's  a  darling." 

He  shook  his  head,  resisting  her  for  once,  and  answered: 

"Go  to  the  devil,  Charity  darling.  You  won't  let  me 
love  you,  so  I'll  be  cussed  if  I'll  let  you  get  me  to  working 
for  you.  I've  had  you  bad  and  I'm  trying  to  get  well  of 
you.  So  let  me  alone." 

That  was  how  Peter  Cheever,  talking  to  the  headwaiter 
at  the  head  of  the  stairs,  saw  his  wife  and  Jim  Dyckman 
with  their  heads  together  at  a  table.  He  wanted  to 

205 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

go  over  and  crack  a  water-bottle  over  Dyckman's 
head.  He  did  not  do  it,  for  the  excellent  reason 
that  Zada  L'Etoile  was  at  his  side.  She  had  insisted 
on  his  taking  her  there  "to  lunch  with  the  bunch,"  as 
she  expressed  it. 

She  also  saw  Charity  and  Jim  and  Cheever's  sudden 
flush  of  rage.  She  felt  that  the  way  was  opening  for  her 
dreams  to  come  true.  She  was  so  happy  over  the  situa- 
tion that  she  helped  Cheever  out  of  the  appalling  problem 
before  him. 

He  did  not  know  how  to  go  forward  or  how  to  retreat. 
He  could  think  of  nothing  to  say  to  the  headwaiter  who 
offered  him  his  choice  of  tables. 

Zada  caught  his  elbow  and  murmured  in  her  very  best 
voice  just  loud  enough  for  the  headwaiter's  benefit: 

"Mr.  Cheever,  I'm  so  sorry — but  I'm  feeling  dizzy. 
I'm  afraid  I  shall  faint  if  I  don't  get  out  in  the  air.  It's 
very  close  in  here." 

"It  is  very  close,  madam,"  said  the  headwaiter,  and 
he  helped  to  support  her  down  the  steps  quietly  and 
deferentially,  just  as  if  he  believed  it. 

Zada  and  Cheever  thought  they  were  escaping  from  a 
crisis,  but  they  were  drifting  deeper  and  deeper  into  the 
converging  currents.  When  they  were  safe  in  the  motor 
outside  Zada  was  proud. 

"Some  get-away,  that?"  she  laughed. 

"Wonderful!"  said  Cheever.  "I  didn't  know  you  had 
so  much  social  skill." 

"You  don't  know  me,"  she  said.  "I'm  learning! 
You'll  be  proud  of  me  yet." 

"I  am  now,"  he  said.  "You're  the  most  beautiful 
thing  in  the  world." 

"Oh,  that's  old  stuff,"  she  said.  "Any  cow  can  be 
glossy.  But  I'm  going  in  for  the  real  thing,  Peterkin. 
I've  cut  out  the  cocktails  and  I  don't  dance  with  anybody 
but  you  lately.  Have  you  noticed  that?  It's  the  quiet 
Hfe  and  the  nice  ways  for  me.  Do  you  mind?" 

206 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"It's  very  becoming,"  he  said.  "Anything  for  a 
novelty." 

Yet  he  liked  her  surprisingly  well  in  this  phase.  She 
had  been  cutting  down  his  liquor,  too.  She  had  been 
cutting  down  his  extravagances.  She  had  even  achieved 
the  height  of  denying  herself  luxuries — one  of  the  surest 
and  least-trodden  short-cuts  to  a  man's  heart — a  little 
secret  path  he  hardly  knows  himself. 

The  affair  of  Zada  and  Cheever  was  going  the  normal 
course.  It  had  lost  the  charm  of  the  wild  and  wicked — 
through  familiarity ;  and  it  was  tending  to  domestication, 
as  all  such  moods  do  if  nothing  interrupts  them.  There 
are  all  sorts  of  endings  to  such  illicit  relations:  most 
of  them  end  with  the  mutual  treachery  of  two  fickle 
creatures;  some  of  them  end  with  bitter  grief  for  one  or 
the  other  or  both;  some  of  them  end  in  crime,  or  at  least 
disgrace;  and  some  of  them  finish,  with  disconcerting  im- 
morality, in  an  inexcusable  respectability. 

The  improvement  in  Zada's  mind  and  heart  was, 
curiously,  the  most  dangerous  thing  in  the  world  for 
Cheever.  If  she  had  stayed  noisy  and  promiscuous  and 
bad,  he  would  have  tired  of  her.  But  she  was  growing 
soft  and  homey,  gentle  as  ivy,  and  as  hard  to  tear  away 
or  to  want  to  tear  away.  After  all,  marriage  is  only  the 
formalizing  of  an  instinct  that  existed  long  before^ — exists 
in  some  animals  and  birds  who  mate  without  formality 
and  stay  mated  without  compulsion. 

When  Zada  and  Cheever  had  escaped  from  the  Ritz- 
Carlton  they  took  lunch  at  another  restaurant.  Zada 
was  childishly  proud  of  her  tact  and  of  Cheever's  ap- 
preciation. But  afterward,  on  the  way  "home" — as  she 
called  what  other  people  called  her  "lair" — she  grew 
suddenly  and  deeply  solemn. 

"So  your  wife  is  with  Dyckman  again,"  she  said.  "It 
looks  to  me  like  a  sketch." 

Cheever  flushed.  He  hated  her  slang  and  he  did  not 
accept  her  conclusion,  but  this  time  he  did  not  forbid  her 

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WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

to  mention  his  wife.  He  could  hardly  do  that  when  her 
tact  had  saved  him  and  Charity  from  the  results  of  their 
double  indiscretion  and  the  shame  of  amusing  that  room- 
ful of  gossips. 

Zada  misunderstood  his  silence  for  approval;  so  she 
spoke  her  thoughts  aloud : 

"If  that  He  and  She  business  goes  on  I  suppose  you'll 
have  to  divorce  the  lady." 

"  Divorce  Charity !"  Cheever  gasped.    ' '  Are  you  dotty  ?" 

That  hit  Zada  pretty  hard,  but  she  bore  it.  She  came 
back  by  another  door. 

"I  guess  I  am — nearly  as  dotty  as  she  is  about  Dyck- 
man.  First  thing  you  know  she'll  be  trying  to  get  free 
herself.  What  if  she  asks  you  for  a  divorce?" 

"I'd  like  to  see  her!" 

"You  mean  you  wouldn't  give  her  her  freedom?" 

"Not  in  a  thousand  years." 

He  was  astounded  at  the  sepulchral  woe  of  Zada's  groan. 
"O  Lord,  and  I  thought — oh — you  don't  love  me  at  all 
then!  You  never  really  loved  me — really!  God  help 
me." 

Cheever  wondered  what  Zada  would  smash  first.  He 
hoped  it  would  not  be  the  window  of  the  car.  He  hoped 
he  could  get  her  safely  indoors  before  the  smashing  began. 

He  did.  She  was  a  grim  and  murky  storm-cloud  full  of 
tornado  when  they  crossed  the  pavement  and  the  vestibule 
of  the  apartment-house  and  went  up  in  the  elevator. 

But  once  inside  the  door,  her  breast  began  to  heave,  her 
nostrils  to  quiver,  her  fingers  to  work.  Her  maid  came  to 
take  her  hat,  and  paled  to  see  her  torment.  Zada  gave 
her  her  things  and  motioned  her  away.  She  motioned  her 
four  or  five  times.  The  maid  had  needed  only  one 
motion. 

Cheever  watched  Zada  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye  and 
wondered  why  he  had  ever  been  fated  to  fall  in  love  with 
such  a  creature.  He  was  convinced  that  he  had  been  fate- 
forced  into  the  intrigue.  He  had  no  sense  whatever  of 

208 


volition  or  wicked  intent.  He  could  only  feel  that  he  had 
tried  to  be  decent  and  play  fair  and  be  generous. 

The  thought  of  what  the  neighbors  were  about  to  hear 
made  him  sick  with  chagrin.  The  fact  that  the  neigh- 
bors were  under  suspicion  themselves  only  aggravated 
the  burden  of  shame. 

The  hardest  part  of  Zada's  agony  was  her  pitiful  effort 
to  take  her  medicine  like  a  lady.  It  was  terrific  how  hard 
it  was  for  one  of  a  wildcat  heritage  and  habit  to  keep 
the  caterwaul  back  and  the  claws  muffled.  The  self- 
duel  nearly  wrecked  Zada,  but  she  won  it.  She  was  not 
thoroughbred,  but  she  had  tried  to  be  thoroughgoing. 
She  was  evidently  not  a  success  as  a  self-made  lady.  She 
kept  whispering  to  herself: 

"What's  the  use?  Oh,  why  did  I  try?  Oh,  oh,  oh, 
what  a  fool  I've  been!  To  think! — to  think! — to  think!" 

Cheever  was  distraught.  He  had  waited  for  the  out- 
break, and  when  it  did  not  come  he  suffered  from  the  re- 
poil  of  his  own  tension. 

"For  the  Lord's  sake,  yell!"  he  implored. 

She  turned  on  him  eyes  of  extraordinary  abjection. 
She  saw  at  last  where  her  lawlessness  had  brought  her, 
and  she  despised  herself.  But  she  did  not  love  him  any 
the  more  for  understanding  him.  She  saw  at  last  that  one 
cannot  be  an  honest  woman  without  actually  being — an 
honest  woman.  She  was  going  to  get  honesty  if  it  broke 
a  bone. 

She  told  her  accomplice:  "I  want  you  to  go  away  and 
stay  away.  Whatever  you  do,  leave  me  be.  There's 
nothing  else  you  can  do  for  me  except  to  take  back  all  the 
stuff  you've  bought  me.  Give  it  to  that  wife  you  love  so 
much  and  wouldn't  suspect  no  matter  what  she  did.  You 
love  her  so  much  that  you  wouldn't  let  her  go  even  if  she 
wanted  to  leave  you.  So  go  back  to  her  and  take  these 
things  to  her  with  my  comp'ments." 

Now  it  was  Cheever  who  wanted  to  scream  as  he  had 
not  screamed  since  he  was  the  purple-faced  boy  who  used 

209 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

to  kick  the  floor  and  his  adoring  nurse.  But  he  had  lost 
the  safety  valve  of  the  scream.  He  smothered. 

When  Zada  began  to  peel  off  her  rings  and  thrust  them 
out  to  him  he  swiftly  turned  on  his  heel  and  fled.  He 
never  knew  whether  Zada  woke  the  block  with  her  howls 
or  not  when  he  left  her  forever. 

He  forgot  to  ask  when  he  came  back. 


CHAPTER  XII 

FIRST  he  went  home  to  take  his  temper  to  Charity. 
On  the  way  he  worked  up  a  splendid  rage  at  her  for 
giving  such  a  woman  as  Zada  grounds  for  gossip.     He  went 
straight  to  her  room  and  walked  in  without  knocking. 

Charity  was  dictating  a  letter  to  her  secretary.  Cheever 
surprised  a  phrase  before  she  saw  him. 

" '  Thousands  of  blind  soldiers  and  thousands  of  orphans 
hold  out  their  hands  to  us.  We  must  all  do  what  we  can — ' 
Why,  hello!  Where  did  you  drop  from?  Give  me  just 
a  minute  while  I  finish  this  letter.  Let  me  see.  Where 
was  I?" 

The  secretary  read  in  a  dull,  secretarial  voice: 

"'Thousblinsoldiersorphs — wem'sdo'U  we  can.'" 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Charity.  '"You  have  never  failed  to 
respond  to  such  an  appeal,'  comma;  no,  semicolon;  no, 
period.  'So  I  shall  put  you  down  for  a  subscription  of 
dash  'how  much'  question-mark.  'Thanking  you  in 
adv' — no,  just  say,  'My  husband  joins  me  in  kindest  re- 
gards to  your  dear  wife  and  yourself,  cordially  yours'— 
and  that  will  be  all  for  the  present." 

The  secretary  garnered  her  sheaves  and  went  out. 
Charity  said  to  Cheever: 

"Well,  young  man,  sit  down  and  tell  us  what's  on  your 
mind.  But  first  let  me  tell  you  my  troubles.  There's  a 
match  on  my  dresser  there.  Peter,  I'm  in  an  awful  mess 
with  this  movie  stunt.  I  can  get  plenty  of  people  to  pose 
for  the  camera,  but  I  can't  find  a  man  to  manage  the 
business  end  of  it.  I  was  lunching  with  Mrs.  Noxon  at 
the  Ritz  to-day.  I  called  your  friend  Jim  Dyckman  over 

211 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

from  another  table  and  begged  him  to  take  the  job.  But 
he  refused  flatly,  the  lazy  brute.  Don't  you  think  you 
could  take  it  on?  I  wish  you  would.  It's  such  a  big 
chance  to  make  a  pile  of  money  for  those  poor  soldiers." 

Cheever  was  lost.  Unconsciously  she  had  cleared  up 
the  scandal  of  her  talk  with  Dyckman.  He  remembered 
that  he  had  seen  Mrs.  Noxon  at  another  table,  standing. 
He  felt  like  a  dog  and  he  wanted  to  fawn  at  the  heels  he 
had  prepared  to  bite.  He  felt  unworthy  to  be  the  associate 
of  his  sainted  wife  in  her  good  works.  He  said: 

"You  flatter  me.  I  couldn't  manage  a  thing  like  that. 
I'm  busy.  I — I  couldn't." 

"You've  got  to  play  a  part,  then,"  she  said.  "You're 
looking  so  well  nowadays,  taking  such  good  care  of  your- 
self. Will  you?" 

"  I  might,"  he  said.     "  I'll  think  it  over." 

She  was  called  to  the  telephone  then  and  he  escaped 
to  his  own  room.  He  moped  about  and  sulked  in  his  un- 
comfortable virtue.  He  dressed  for  dinner  with  unusual 
care.  He  was  trying  to  make  a  hit  with  his  wife. 

In  going  through  his  pocket-book  he  came  across  two 
theater  tickets.  He  had  promised  to  take  Zada.  He  felt 
like  a  low  hound,  both  for  planning  to  take  her  and  for 
not  taking  her.  She  would  have  a  dismal  evening.  And 
she  was  capable  of  such  ferocious  lonelinesses.  He  had 
driven  away  all  her  old  friends.  She  would  recall  them 
now,  he  supposed.  That  would  be  a  pity,  for  they  were  an 
odious  gang.  It  would  be  his  fault  if  she  relapsed.  It 
was  his  duty,  in  a  way,  to  help  her  to  reform. 

The  ludicrous  sublimity  of  such  an  ethical  snarl  re- 
duced him  to  inanity.  He  stayed  to  dinner.  Charity 
had  net  expected  him  to  stop.  She  had  planned  an 
evening's  excavation  into  her  correspondence  and  had 
not  changed  her  street  dress.  She  was  surprised  and 
childishly  delighted  to  have  him  with  her — then  child- 
ishly unhappy  as  she  observed: 

"But  you're  all  togged  up.     You're  going  out." 
212 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"No — well — that  is — er — I  was  thinking  you  would 
like  to  see  a  show.  I've  got  tickets." 

"But  it's  late.     I'm  not  dressed." 

"What's  the  odds?  You  look  all  right.  There's  never 
anybody  but  muckers  there  Saturday  nights.  We'll  miss 
it  all  if  you  stop  to  prink." 

"All  right,"  she  cried,  and  hurried  through  the  dinner. 

He  was  glad  at  least  that  he  had  escaped  a  solemn  eve- 
ning at  home.  He  could  not  keep  awake  at  home. 

So  they  went  to  the  theater;  but  there  was  not  "no- 
body there,"  as  he  had  promised. 

Zada  was  there — alone  in  a  box,  dressed  in  her  best, 
and  wearing  her  East-Lynniest  look  of  pathos. 

The  coincidence  was  not  occult.  After  several  hours 
of  brave  battle  with  grief  and  a  lonely  dinner  Zada  had 
been  faced  by  the  appalling  prospect  of  an  evening  alone. 

She  remembered  Cheever's  purchase  of  the  theater 
tickets,  and  she  was  startled  with  an  intuition  that  he 
would  take  his  wife  in  her  place.  Men  are  capable  of  such 
indecent  economies. 

Zada  was  suffocated  with  rage  at  the  possibility.  She 
always  believed  implicitly  in  the  worst  things  she  could 
think  of.  If  Peter  Cheever  dared  do  such  a  thing! 
And  of  course  he  would!  Well,  she  would  just  find 
out! 

She  threw  a  lonely  wineglass  at  the  fern-dish  and 
smashed  a  decanter.  Then  she  pushed  off  the  table  about 
a  hundred  dollars'  worth  of  chinaware,  and  kicked  her 
chair  over  backward.  She  had  been  famous  for  her  back- 
kick  in  her  public  dancing-days. 

She  howled  to  her  maid  and  went  into  her  wardrobe 
with  both  hands.  She  acted  like  a  windmill  in  a  dress- 
shop.  Finally  she  came  upon  what  she  was  looking  for — 
the  most  ladylike  theater-gown  that  ever  combined  mag- 
nificence with  dazzling  respectability. 

She  made  up  her  face  like  a  lady's — it  took  some 
paint  to  do  that.  Meanwhile,  her  maid  was  telephoning 

213 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

speculators  for  a  box.  Zada  arrived  before  Cheever  and 
Charity  did.  She  waited  a  long  time,  haughtily  indif- 
ferent to  the  admiration  she  and  her  gown  were  achieving. 
At  last  she  was  punished  and  rewarded,  revenged,  and 
destroyed  by  the  sight  of  Cheever  coming  down  the  aisle 
with  Charity.  They  had  to  pause  to  let  a  fat  couple  rise, 
and  they  paused,  facing  Zada.  Cheever  caught  her  eye 
and  halted,  petrified,  long  enough  for  Charity  to  sit  down, 
look  up  at  him,  follow  the  line  of  his  gaze,  and  catch  a  full 
blast  of  Zada's  beauty  and  of  the  fierce  look  she  fastened 
on  Cheever.  Charity's  eyes  ran  back  on  the  almost 
visible  clothes-line  of  that  taut  gaze  and  found  Cheever 
wilting  with  several  kinds  of  shame. 

He  sat  down  glum  and  scarlet,  and  Charity's  heart 
began  to  throb.  A  second  glance  told  her  who  Zada  was. 
She  had  seen  the  woman  often  when  Zada  had  danced  in 
the  theaters  and  the  hotel  ballrooms. 

Charity  found  herself  thinking  that  she  was  not  Cheev- 
er's  wife,  but  only  a  poor  relation — by  marriage.  The 
worst  of  it  was  that  she  was  not  dressed  for  the  theater. 
The  gown  she  wore  was  exquisite  in  its  place,  but  it  was 
dull  and  informal  and  it  gave  her  no  help  in  the  ordeal  she 
was  suddenly  submitted  to.  Her'  hair  had  not  been 
coiffed  by  the  high-elbowed  artist  with  the  waving-tongs. 
Her  brains  were  not  marceled  for  a  beauty-contest  with 
her  rival.  She  was  at  her  worst  and  Zada  was  at  her 
supreme. 

Zada  was  not  entirely  unknown  to  Charity.  She  had 
not  been  able  to  escape  all  the  gossip  that  linked  Cheever 
with  her,  but  she  had  naturally  heard  little  of  it,  and 
then  only  from  people  of  the  sort  who  run  to  their  friends 
with  all  the  bad  news  they  can  collect.  They  are  easily 
discredited. 

Charity  had  spent  so  many  bad  hours  wondering  at  her 
husband's  indifference  and  had  heard  his  name  linked 
with  so  many  names  that  she  had  temporized  with  the 
situation.  Cheever  was  of  the  sort  that  looks  at  every 

214 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

woman  with  desire,  or  looks  as  if  he  looked  so.  The 
wives  of  such  men  grow  calloused  or  quit  them. 

Charity  had  not  quit  Cheever.  She  had  hardly  dreamed 
of  it.  She  had  not  outgrown  being  hurt.  Her  slow 
wrath  had  not  begun  to  manifest  itself.  This  crushing 
humiliation  smote  her  from  a  clear  sky. 

She  was  not  ready  for  it.  She  did  not  know  what  to  do. 
She  only  knew,  by  long  training,  that  she  must  not  do  what 
she  first  wanted  to  do.  She  had  been  taught  from  child- 
hood what  Zada  was  only  now  trying  to  learn. 

Charity  pretended  a  great  interest  in  her  program  and 
laughed  flightily.  Cheever  was  morose.  He  stole  glances 
at  Zada  and  saw  that  she  was  in  anguish.  He  felt  that  he 
had  treated  her  like  dirt.  He  was  unworthy  of  her,  or  of 
his  wife,  or  of  anything  but  a  horsewhip. 

He  glanced  at  Charity  and  was  fooled  by  her  casual 
chatter.  He  supposed  that  she  was  as  ignorant  of  the 
affair  with  Zada  as  he  wanted  her  to  be.  He  wished  that 
he  could  pretend  to  be  unconcerned,  but  he  could  not 
keep  his  program  from  shivering;  his  throat  was  full  of 
phlegm;  he  choked  on  the  simplest  words.  He  thought 
for  some  trick  of  escape,  a  pretended  illness,  a  remembered 
business  engagement,  a  disgust  with  the  play. 

He  was  afraid  to  trust  his  voice  to  any  proposal  or  even 
to  go  out  between  the  acts. 

The  worst  of  it  was  that  he  felt  -sorrier  for  Zada  than 
for  his  wife.  Poor  Zada  had  nothing,  Charity  had  every- 
thing. How  easily  we  vote  other  people  everything! 
Cheever  was  afraid  of  the  ride  home  with  Charity;  he 
dreaded  to  be  at  home  to-night  and  to-morrow  and 
always.  He  longed  to  go  to  Zada  and  help  her  and  let 
her  revile  him  and  scratch  him,  perhaps,  provided  only 
that  she  would  throw  her  arms  about  him  afterward. 
He  never  imagined  that  a  duel  of  self-control,  a  mortal 
combat  in  refinement,  was  being  fought  over  him  by  those 
two  women. 

Zada's  strength  gave  out  long  before  Charity's;  she  was 

215 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

newer  to  the  game.  During  a  dark  scene  she  surrendered 
the  field  and  decamped.  But  Cheever  and  his  wife  both 
caught  the  faint  shimmer  of  her  respectable  robe  as  it 
floated  from  the  rail  and  vanished  in  the  curtains.  It 
was  like  a  dematerialization  at  a  seance. 

Cheever  wanted  to  crane  his  neck  and  dared  not. 
Charity  felt  a  great  withdrawal  of  support  in  the  flight 
of  her  rival.  She  had  not  Zada's  presence  now  to  sustain 
her  through  the  last  act.  But  she  sat  it  out. 

She  was  bitter  against  Cheever,  and  her  thoughts  dark. 
The  burden  of  his  infidelity  was  heavy  enough  for  her 
to  bear,  but  for  him  to  subject  her  to  such  a  confrontation 
was  outrageous.  She  had  no  doubt  that  it  was  a  cooked- 
up  scheme.  That  vile  creature  had  planned  it  and  that 
worm  of  a  husband  had  consented  to  it! 

The  most  unforgivable  thing  of  all,  of  course,  was  the 
clothes  of  it. 

Charity,  in  the  course  of  time,  forgave  nearly  everybody 
everything,  but  she  never  forgave  her  husband  that. 

On  the  way,  home  she  had  nothing  to  say.  Neither  had 
Cheever.  He  felt  homesick  for  Zada.  Charity  felt  home- 
less. She  must  have  been  the  laughing-stock  or  the  pity- 
ing-stock of  the  whole  world  for  a  long  time. 

When  they  reached  home  she  bade  Cheever  a  per- 
fectly cheerful  good-night  and  left  him  to  a  cold  supper 
the  butler  had  laid  out  for  him.  She  did  not  know  that  he 
stole  from  the  house  and  flew  to  Zada. 

Charity  was  tempted  to  an  immediate  denunciation  of 
Cheever  and  a  declaration  of  divorce.  She  would  cer- 
tainly not  live  with  him  another  day.  That  would  be  to 
make  herself  an  accomplice,  a  silent  partner  of  Zada's. 
It  would  be  intolerable,  immoral,  not  nice. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

HPHE  next  morning  proved  to  be  a  Sunday  and  she 
1  felt  a  need  of  spiritual  help  in  her  hour  of  affliction. 
Man  had  betrayed  her;  religion  would  sustain  her  grim 
determination  to  end  the  unwholesome  condition  of  her 
household.  The  Bible  said  (didn't  it?),  "If  thy  right 
hand  offend  thee,  cut  it  off."  That  surely  meant,  "If 
thy  husband  offend  thee,  divorce  him." 

She  went  to  church,  her  ancestral  Episcopalian  church, 
where  her  revered  Doctor  Mosely,  the  kindliest  old  gentle- 
man in  the  world,  had  poured  sermons  down  at  her  like 
ointment  and  sent  prayers  up  like  smoke  since  she  was  a 
little  girl.  But  on  this  day  he  chose  to  preach  a  ferocious 
harangue  against  divorce  as  the  chief  peril,  the  ruination 
of  modern  society. 

The  cowering  Charity  got  from  him  the  impression  that 
home  life  had  always  been  flawless  in  this  country  until 
the  last  few  years,  when  divorce  began  to  prosper,  and 
that  domestic  life  in  countries  where  there  is  little  or  no 
divorce  had  always  been  an  unmitigated  success.  If  only 
divorce  and  remarriage  were  ended,  the  millennium  of  our 
fathers  would  return. 

This  had  not  been  her  previous  opinion ;  it  was  her  vivid 
impression  from  Doctor  Mosely,  as  honest  an  old  darling 
as  ever  ran  facts  through  a  sieve  and  threw  away  all  the 
big  chunks  that  would  not  go  through  the  fine  mesh  of  his 
prejudices.  He  abhorred  falsehood,  cruelty,  skepticism, 
sectarianism,  and  narrowness,  and  his  sermons  were  un- 
conscious mixtures  of  hand-picked  truth  and  eloquent 
legends,  ruthless  denunciations  of  misunderstood  people 

217 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

and  views,  atheism  toward  the  revelations  of  all  the 
sciences  (particularly  the  science  of  biblical  criticism, 
which  he  hated  worse  than  he  hated  Haeckel),  and  a 
narrowness  that  kept  trying  to  sharpen  itself  into  a  razor 
edge. 

Fortunately  he  belied  in  his  life  almost  all  of  his  pulpit 
crimes  and  moved  about,  a  tender,  chivalrous,  lovable 
old  gentleman.  It  was  this  phase  that  Charity  knew,  for 
she  had  not  heard  one  of  his  sermons  for  a  year  or  more, 
though  she  saw  him  often  in  his  parish  work.  She  was  the 
more  amenable  to  his  pulpit  logic  to-day. 

Charity  had  always  assumed  that  the  United  States 
was  the  most  virtuous,  enlightened,  and  humane  of  na- 
tions. According  to  Doctor  Mosely,  it  was  shockingly 
corrupt,  disgusting.  The  family  as  an  institution  was 
almost  completely  gone;  its  only  salvation  would  be  an 
immediate  return  to  a  divorceless  condition.  (Like  that 
of  Italy  and  Spain  and  France  during  the  Middle  Ages?) 

Hitherto  Charity  had  not  thought  much  about  divorce, 
except  to  regret  that  certain  friends  of  hers  had  not  hit 
it  off  better  and  had  had  to  undergo  cruel  notoriety  after 
their  private  distresses.  But  divorce  was  no  longer  an 
academic  question  to  her.  It  had  come  home. 

When  she  realized  that  her  husband  had  been  not  only 
neglectful  of  her,  but  devoted  to  a  definite  other  woman,  she 
felt  at  first  that  it  would  be  heinous  to  receive  him  back 
in  her  arms  fresh  from  the  arms  of  a  vile  creature  like 
Zada  L'Etoile.  Now  she  got  from  the  pulpit  the  distinct 
message  that  just  this  was  her  one  important  duty,  and 
that  any  attempt  to  break  from  such  a  triple  yoke  would 
be  a  monstrous  iniquity  which  the  Church  could  not 
condone. 

Doctor  Mosely  implied  that  when  one  partner  to  a 
marriage  wandered  aside  into  forbidden  paths  (as  he  very 
prettily  phrased  the  very  ugly  matter)  it  was  always  the 
fault  of  the  other  partner.  He  thundered  that  the  wives 
of  to-day  were  not  like  their  simple-minded  mothers,  be- 

218 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

cause  they  played  bridge  and  smoked  cigarettes  and  did 
not  attend  prayer-meetings  and  would  not  have  children. 
It  was  small  wonder,  he  said,  that  their  husbands  could 
not  be  held.  Doctor  Mosely  had  preached  the  same  ser- 
mon at  Charity's  mother  and  her  generation,  and  his 
father  had  preached  it  at  his  generation,  with  the  necessary 
terms  changed  and  the  spirit  the  same.  He  and  his  kind 
had  been  trying  since  time  began  to  cure  the  inherent  ills 
of  human  relationships  by  railing  at  old  errors  and  calling 
them  new. 

So  in  the  dark  ages  the  good  priests  had  tried  to  cure 
insane  people  by  shouting  denunciations  at  the  devils 
that  inhabited  them.  The  less  they  cured  the  louder 
they  shouted,  and  when  the  remedy  failed  they  blamed 
the  patients. 

So  fathers  try  to  keep  their  little  sons  from  being 
naughty  and  untruthful  by  telling  them  how  good  and 
obedient  little  boys  were  when  they  were  little  boys. 
They  tell  a  silly  lie  to  rebuke  a  lie  and  wonder  at  their  non- 
success. 

Marital  unrest  is  no  more  a  sign  of  wickedness  than 
stomach-ache  is;  it  is  a  result  of  indigestion  or  ptomaine 
poisoning,  and  divorce  is  only  a  strong  purge  or  an  emetic, 
equally  distressing  and  often  the  only  remedy. 

But  Doctor  Mosely  honestly  abominated  divorce;  he 
regretted  it  almost  as  much  as  he  regretted  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  heresies  or  the  perverseness  of  the  low-Church 
doctrines. 

Charity  had  always  been  religious;  she  had  wrecked 
her  health  visiting  the  sick  and  cherishing  the  orphan 
and  she  had  believed  everything  she  was  told  to  believe. 
But  now  when  she  went  to  church  for  strength  and  comfort 
she  came  away  feeling  herself  a  condemned  and  branded 
failure,  blameworthy  for  all  her  husband's  sins  and  sins  of 
her  own  that  she  had  not  suspected. 

She  prayed  to  be  forgiven  for  causing  her  husband  to 
sin  and  asked  strength  to  win  him  back  to  his  duty.  She 

219 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

reached  home  in  such  a  mood  of  holy  devotion  that  when 
she  found  her  husband  there  she  bespoke  him  tenderly 
and  put  out  her  arms  to  him  and  moaned: 

"Forgive  me!" 

"For  what?"  he  said  as  he  went  to  her  from  habit  before 
he  could  check  himself.  But  even  as  he  clasped  her  she 
felt  that  his  very  sleeves  were  warm  from  Zada  L'Etoile's 
embrace  and  she  slipped  through  his  arms  to  the  floor. 

When  she  came  to,  she  was  lying  on  a  couch  with  a 
cushion  under  her  heels,  and  Cheever  was  chafing  her 
wrists  and  kissing  her  hand.  She  drew  it  away  feebly  and 
said: 

"Thank  you.     I'll  be  all  right.     Just  leave  me  alone." 

He  remembered  that  Zada  had  said  much  the  same 
thing.  He  was  glad  to  leave  the  room.  When  he  had 
gone  Charity  got  up  and  washed  her  hands,  particularly 
the  hand,  particularly  the  spot,  he  had  kissed. 

She  seemed  to  feel  that  some  of  the  rouge  from  Zada's 
lips  had  been  left  there  by  Cheever's  lips.  There  was  a 
red  stain  there  and  she  could  not  wash  it  away.  Perhaps 
it  was  there  because  she  tried  so  hard  to  rub  it  off.  But 
it  tormented  her  as  she  went  sleep- walking,  rubbing  her 
hand  like  another  Lady  Macbeth. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

ON  Monday  there  was  a  meeting  of  one  of  the  com- 
mittees she  had  organized  for  the  furtherance  of 
what  she  called  the  movie  stunt.  The  committee  met  at 
the  Colony  Club.  Most  of  the  committee  were  women 
of  large  wealth  and  of  executive  ability,  and  they  ac- 
complished a  deal  of  business  with  expedition  in  their 
own  way. 

There  was  some  chatter,  but  it  was  to  the  point.  At 
length  during  a  discussion  of  various  forms  of  entertain- 
ment Mrs.  Noxon  said  she  was  afraid  that  the  show  would 
be  deadly  dull  with  only  amateurs  in  it.  Mrs.  Dyckman 
thought  that  professionals  would  make  the  amateurs 
look  more  amateurish  than  ever.  The  debate  swayed 
from  side  to  side,  but  finally  inclined  toward  the  be- 
lief that  a  few  professional  bits  would  refresh  the 
audience. 

And  then  suddenly  Mrs.  Neff  had  to  sing  out:  "Oh, 
Charity,  I've  an  idea.  Let's  get  some  stunning  dancer  to 
do  a  special  number.  I  remember  one  who  would  be  just 
the  ticket.  What's  the  name — Zada  Le  Something  or 
other.  She's  a  gorgeous  creature.  Have  you  seen  her 
recently?" 

Several  women  began  signaling  wildly  to  Mrs.  Neff  to 
keep  quiet.  Charity  saw  their  semaphores  at  work,  but 
Mrs.  Neff  was  blind — blind,  but  not  speechless.  She 
kept  on  singing  the  praises  of  Zada  till  everybody  wanted 
to  gag  her. 

An  open  mind  to  gossip  is  an  important  thing.  We 
ought  to  keep  up  with  all  the  scandals  concerning  our 

221 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

friends  and  enemies.  Otherwise  we  lose  many  an  op- 
portunity to  undercut  the  latter  and  we  are  constantly 
annoying  the  former. 

It  was  Mrs.  Neff,  of  all  people — and  she  loved  Charity 
Coe  dearly — who  caused  her  public  shame  and  suffering. 
Mrs.  Neff  had  defended  Charity  from  the  slanderous  as- 
sumptions of  Prissy  Atterbury  and  had  refused  to  listen 
to  Pet  Bettany's  echoes. 

She  had,  indeed,  a  bad  reputation  for  rebuking  well- 
meaning  disseminators  of  spice.  This  attitude  discouraged 
several  persons  who  would  otherwise  have  told  her  all 
sorts  of  interesting  things  about  Charity's  husband's 
entente  cordiale  with  Zada. 

Charity  had  dwelt  in  a  fool's  paradise  of  trust  in  Peter 
Cheever  for  a  while,  then  had  dropped  back  into  a  fool's 
purgatory  of  doubt,  where  she  wandered  bewildered. 
Now  she  was  thrown  into  the  fool's  hell.  She  knew  that 
her  love  had  been  betrayed.  Everybody  else  knew  it  and 
was  wondering  how  she  would  act. 

Charity  was  sick.  This  was  really  more  than  she  had 
bargained  for.  As  before,  she  felt  it  immodest  to  expose 
her  emotions  in  public,  so  she  said: 

"Yes,  I've  seen  her.  She  is  very  attractive,  isn't  she? 
I  don't  know  if  she  is  dancing  in  public  any  more,  but 
I'll  find  out." 

Mrs.  Neff  sat  back  triumphantly  and  let  the  meeting 
proceed.  But  there  was  a  gray  pall  on  the  occasion. 
Women  began  to  look  at  their  wrist-watches  and  pretend 
to  be  shocked  at  the  lateness  of  the  hour,  and  all  of  them 
shook  hands  solemnly  with  Charity.  There  was  a 
poorly  veiled  condolence  in  their  tone. 

Charity  carried  it  off  pluckily,  but  she  was  in  a  danger- 
ous humor.  She  really  could  not  endure  the  patronizing 
mercy  of  these  women. 

That  night  Cheever  made  again  his  appearance  at  the 
dinner-table.  He  had  some  notion  of  putting  Charity  off 
her  guard  or  of  atoning  to  her  in  part  for  his  resumed  al- 

222 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

liance  with  Zada.  He  could  not  have  told  what  his  own 
motives  were,  for  he  was  in  a  state  of  bewilderment  be- 
tween his  duties  to  Mrs.  Charity  Tweedledum  and  Miss 
Zada  Tweedledee.  He  could  not  tell  which  one  had  the 
greater  claim  on  his  favors. 

Charity  studied  him  across  the  table  and  wondered 
what  he  really  was,  faun  or  traitor,  Mormon  or  weakling. 
He  was  certainly  handsome,  but  the  influence  of  Zada 
L'Etoile  seemed  to  hang  about  him  like  a  green  slime  on  a 
statue. 

She  could  not  find  any  small  talk  to  carry  the  meal 
along.  At  length  Cheever  asked: 

"What  you  been  up  to  all  day?" 

"Oh,  committee  stuff — that  movie  thing,  you  know." 

"How's  it  coming  on?     Got  a  manager  yet?" 

"Not  yet.  We  were  talking  about  getting  some  pro- 
fessionals in  to  brighten  up  the  evening." 

"Good  work!    Those  amateurs  make  me  sick." 

"Mrs.  Neff  proposed  that  we  get  some  stunning  dancer 
to  do  a  turn." 

"Not  a  bad  idea.     For  instance — " 

He  emptied  his  glass  of  Chablis  and  the  butler  was 
standing  by  to  refill  it  when  Charity  answered: 

"Mrs.  Neff  suggested  a  dancer  I  haven't  seen  on  the 
stage  for  some  time.  You  used  to  admire  her." 

"Yes?"  said  Cheever,  pushing  his  glass  along  the  table 
toward  the  butler,  who  began  to  pour  as  Charity  slid  home 
her  coup  de  grdce. 

"Zada  L'Etoile.     What's  become  of  her?" 

Cheever's  eyes  gaped  and  his  jaws  dropped.  The 
butler's  expression  was  the  same.  He  poured  the  Chablis 
on  the  back  of  Cheever's  hand  and  neither  noticed  it  till 
Charity  laughed  hysterically  and  drove  the  sword  a  little 
deeper: 

"  Is  she  still  alive?    Have  you  seen  her?" 

Cheever  glared  at  her,  breathed  hard,  swore  at  the 
butler,  wiped  his  hand  on  his  napkin,  gnawed  his  lips, 

223 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

twisted  his  mustache,  threw  down  the  napkin,  rose,  and 
left  the  table. 

Charity's  smile  turned  to  a  grimace.  She  saw  that  the 
butler  was  ashamed  of  her.  He  almost  told  her  that  she 
ought  to  have  known  better  than  subject  him  and  the 
other  servants  to  such  a  scene. 

Charity  caught  herself  about  to  say,  "I  beg  your  pardon, 
Hammond." 

She  felt  as  if  she  ought  to  beg  the  pardon  of  everybody 
in  the  world. 

She  could  not  stand  the  lonely  dining-room  long.  She 
rose  and  walked  out.  It  seemed  that  she  would  never 
reach  the  door.  It  was  a  via  crucis  to  her.  Her  back 
ached  with  the  sense  of  eyes  upon  it. 

The  hall  was  lonely.  The  thud  of  the  front  door  jarred 
her.  She  went  into  the  library.  It  was  a  dark  and 
frowning  cavern.  She  went  into  the  music-room,  ap- 
proached the  piano,  looked  over  the  music,  turned  up 
"Go,  Lovely  Rose."  The  rose  that  Jim  Dyckman  said 
she  was  had  been  thrown  into  the  mud.  She  went  up  to 
her  room.  The  maid  was  arranging  her  bed  for  the 
night.  She  had  turned  down  one  corner  of  the  cover, 
built  up  one  heap  of  pillows,  set  one  pair  of  slippers  by 
the  edge. 

Charity  felt  like  a  rejected  old  spinster.  She  sat  and 
mused  and  her  thoughts  were  bitter.  She  remembered 
Doctor  Mosely's  sermon  and  wondered  if  he  would  preach 
what  he  preached  if  he  knew  what  she  knew.  She  would 
go  to  him  and  tell  him. 

But  what  did  she  know?  Enough  to  convince  herself, 
but  nothing  at  all  that  even  a  preacher  would  call  evidence. 

She  must  have  proof.  She  resolved  to  get  it.  There 
must  be  an  abundance  of  it.  She  wondered  how  one  went 
at  the  getting  of  evidence. 


CHAPTER  XV 

WHILE  Charity  was  resolving  to  tear  down  her  life 
Kedzie  Thropp  was  building  herself  a  new  one  on 
the  foundations  that  Charity  had  laid  for  her  with  a  card 
of  introduction  to  Miss  Havender. 

In  the  motion-picture  world  Kedzie  had  found  herself. 
Her  very  limitations  were  to  her  advantage.  She  would 
have  failed  dismally  in  the  spoken  drama,  but  the  flowing 
photograma  was  just  to  her  measure. 

The  actor  must  not  only  know  how  to  read  his  lines 
and  express  emotions,  but  must  keep  up  the  same  spon- 
taneity night  after  night,  sometimes  for  a  thousand  per- 
formances or  more.  The  movie  actor  is  expected  to 
respond  to  a  situation  once  or  twice  for  rehearsal,  and 
once  or  twice  for  the  camera.  There  is  no  audience  to 
struggle  against  and  listen  for — and  to.  The  director  is 
always  there  at  the  side  calling,  reminding,  pleading,  en- 
couraging, threatening,  suggesting  the  thoughts,  the  lines, 
and  the  expression,  doing  all  the  work  except  the  pan- 
tomime. 

That  waCs  Kedzie's  salvation.  Tell  her  a  story  and 
make  her  the  heroine  of  it,  and  her  excitable  heart  would 
thrill  to  the  emotional  crisis.  Take  a  snapshot  of  her, 
and  the  picture  was  caught. 

Ferriday  soon  learned  this  and  protected  her  from  her 
own  helpless  vice  of  discontent.  She  lapsed  always  from 
her  enthusiasm  after  it  was  once  cold.  As  an  actress 
she  would  have  been  one  of  those  frequent  flashers  who 
give  a  splendid  rehearsal  or  two  and  then  sink  back  into 
a  torpor.  She  might  have  risen  to  an  appealing  first- 
is  225 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

night  performance.  Thereafter,  she  would  have  become 
dismal.  The  second  week  would  have  found  the  audi- 
ences disgusted  and  the  third  would  have  found  her 
breaking  her  contract  and  running  away  with  somebody. 
A  horse  that  has  run  away  once  is  likely  to  run  away  again. 
Kedzie  had  run  away  twice. 

But  the  movie  life  was  just  the  thing  for  her.  She  did 
not  play  always  the  same  set  scenes  in  the  same  scene  sets. 
She  was  not  required  even  to  follow  the  logic  of  the  story. 
For  a  while  she  would  play  a  bit  in  a  tiny  angle  represent- 
ing a  drawing-room.  When  that  was  taken  she  would 
play,  not  the  next  moment  of  the  story,  but  the  next  scene 
in  that  scene.  It  might  be  a  year  further  along  in  the 
story.  It  was  exciting. 

Her  second  picture  had  great  success.  She  played  the 
girl  brought  up  as  a  boy  by  a  cruel  Italian  padrone  who 
made  her  steal.  Her  third  picture  was  as  nearly  the  same 
as  possible. 

Now  she  was  a  ragged  waif,  a  girl,  who  dressed  as  a  boy 
and  sold  newspapers  so  as  to  keep  her  old  father  in  liquor. 
The  garret  was  a  rickety  table,  a  .rusty  stove,  a  broken 
chair,  and  a  V  of  painted  canvas  walls  with  a  broken 
window  and  a  paper  snowstorm  falling  back  of  it.  There 
Kedzie  was  found  in  very  becoming  ragged  breeches, 
pouting  with  starvation.  Her  father  drove  her  out  for 
gin. 

She  walked  out  of  the  set,  picked  up  a  bottle;  and  brought 
it  back.  The  scene  in  the  saloon  would  be  taken  later: 
also  the  street  scenes  to  and  from. 

An  officer  of  the  "Cruelty"  came  and  took  her  from 
the  garret.  That  was  the  beginning  of  a  series  of  advent- 
ures culminating  in  a  marriage  with  a  multimillionaire. 
While  the  garret  was  set,  the  finish  of  the  story  was  taken. 

She  ran  and  changed  her  costume  to  one  of  wealth  with 
ermine.  She  came  in  with  the  handsome  young  million- 
aire. It  was  the  next  winter.  Her  father  was  dying. 
He  asked  her  forgiveness  and  gave  her  his  blessing. 

226 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Then  Kedzie  changed  back  to  her  first  costume  and 
went  in  the  motor  to  a  dismal  street  where  she  was  shown 
coming  out  of  the  tenement,  and  going  back  to  it  gin- 
laden,  and  again  with  the  officer  of  the  Society  for  the 
Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Children. 

She  changed  once  more  to  her  wealthy  garb  with  the 
ermine  and  was  photographed  going  in  with  her  young 
millionaire. 

The  next  day  the  scene  in  the  Cruelty  office  was  built 
and  she  acted  in  it.  The  drawing-room  in  the  millionaire's 
home  was  assembled  and  she  acted  in  that.  Then  she 
went  out  in  rags  and  sold  newspapers  on  a  corner.  So  it 
went.  The  chronology  hopelessly  jumbled,  but  .  the 
change  incessant. 

The  studio  was  a  palace  of  industry.  Many  of  the 
scenes  were  played  on  the  great  glass-covered  roof.  On 
bright  days  she  would  ride  in  a  closed  automobile  to  some 
street  or  some  lonely  glen  or  to  the  home  of  some  wealthy 
person  who  had  lent  his  house  to  the  movies  on  the  bribe 
of  a  gift  to  his  favorite  benevolence. 

There  was  the  thrill  of  sitting  in  the  projection-room 
and  watching  herself  scamper  across  the  scene,  or  flirt 
or  weep,  look  pretty  or  gorgeous,  sad  or  gay. 

One's  own  portrait  is  always  a  terribly  fascinating 
thing,  for  it  is  always  the  inaccurate  portrait  of  a  stranger 
curiously  akin  to  one  and  curiously  alien.  But  to  see  one's 
portrait  move  and  breathe  and  feel  is  magic  unbelievable. 

In  the  enlarged  close-ups  when  Kedzie  was  a  girl 
giantess,  the  effect  was  uncanny.  She  loved  herself  and 
was  glad  of  the  friendly  dark  that  hid  her  own  wild  pride 
in  her  beauty,  but  did  not  prevent  her  from  hearing  the 
exclamations  of  Ferriday  and  the  backers  and  the  other 
actors  who  were  admitted  to  the  preliminary  views. 

There  was  a  quality  in  her  work  that  surpassed  Fer- 
riday's  expectations  and  made  her  pantomime  singularly 
legible.  The  modulations  of  her  thought  from  one  ex- 
treme mood  to  another  were  always  traceable.  This  was 

227 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

true  of  the  least  feelings.  Ferriday  would  say:  "Now 
you  decide  to  telephone  your  lover.  You  hesitate,  you 
telephone,  a  girl  answers,  you  wait,  he  speaks,  you  smile." 

Kedzie  would  nod  with  impatient  zest  and  one  could 
read  each  gradation  of  thought.  "I'd  better  telephone 
him.  I  will.  No,  I'd  better  not.  Yes.  No.  Shall  I? 
Well,  I  will.  Hello!  Hello,  Central!  Hurry  up !  Gram- 
ercy  816.  What  takes  so  long?  Is  this  Gramercy  816? 
Mr.  Monteith.  Oh,  isn't  she  smart?  What  keeps  him? 
Is  he  out?  No,  there  he  is!  Oh,  joy!  I  must  be  very 
severe.  Hello,  Harry." 

All  these  thoughts  the  spectator  could  follow.  They 
ran,  as  it  were,  under  her  skin.  There  was  no  stolidity 
or  phlegm.  She  was  astoundingly  alive  and  real.  Unim- 
portant, without  sublimity  of  emotion  or  intellectual 
power,  she  was  irresistibly  real.  The  public  understood 
all  she  told  it,  and  adored  her. 

Her  petulance,  quick  temper,  pretty  discontent,  did  not 
harm  her  on  the  screen,  but  helped  immensely,  for  they 
gave  her  character.  It  was  delicious  to  see  her  eyes  nar- 
row with  sudden  resentment  or  girlish  malice  and  widen 
again  with  equally  abrupt  affection.  She  was  so  pretty 
that  she  could  afford  to  act  ugly. 

It  took  time,  however,  to  get  Kedzie  from  the  studio 
to  the  negative,  then  to  the  positive.  There  was  editing 
to  do,  and  it  seemed  to  her  that  her  most  delicious  bits 
had  to  be  cut  out,  because  Ferriday  always  took  three  or 
four  thousand  feet  of  film  for  every  thousand  he  used. 
They  had  to  cut  out  more  Kedzie  to  let  in  the  titles  and 
subtitles,  and  it  angered  her  to  see  how  much  space  was 
given  to  other  members  of  the  cast.  She  simply  loathed 
the  scenes  she  was  not  the  center  of,  and  she  developed 
an  acerbity  of  protest  against  any  "trespass"  on  her 
"rights"  that  proved  her  a  genuine  business  woman. 

She  learned  the  tricks  of  the  trade  with  magnificent 
speed.  She  was  never  so  meek  and  helpless  of  expression 
as  when  she  slipped  in  front  of  another  actor  or  actress 

228 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

and  filled  as  much  of  the  foreground  as  her  slenderness 
permitted.  When  she  was  crowded  into  the  background 
she  knew  how  to  divert  attention  to  herself  during  the  best 
moments  of  the  other  people  in  the  scene.  And  she  could 
most  innocently  spoil  any  bit  that  she  did  not  like  to  do 
herself  or  have  done  by  another. 

In  the  studio  she  was  speedily  recognized  as  an  am- 
bitious young  woman  zealous  for  self-advancement.  In 
fact,  they  called  her  a  "reel  hog"  and  a  "glutton  for 
footage."  A  number  of  minor  feuds  were  turned  into 
deep  friendships  through  a  common  resentment  at 
Kedzie's  impartial  robberies. 

Ferriday  did  not  object  to  these  professional  traits. 
They  exist  in  all  trades,  and  success  is  never  won  in  large 
measure  without  them.  Almost  all  businesses  are  little 
trusts,  monopolies  more  or  less  tiny,  more  or  less  ruthless. 

Ferriday  delighted  in  Kedzie's  battle  for  space  with  the 
other  members  of  the  troupe.  They  kept  everybody 
intense.  The  lover  loved  her  better  on  the  screen  for 
hating  her  personal  avarice.  Her  mother  in  the  picture 
was  more  meltingly  tender  in  her  caresses  for  wanting  to 
scratch  the  little  cat's  eyes  out.  The  clergyman  who 
pointed  her  the  way  to  heaven  grew  more  ardently  devout 
for  having  to  grip  the  floor  with  his  feet  to  keep  the  adoring 
Kedzie  from  edging  him  off  his  own  pulpit. 

This  rivalry  is  better  than  any  number  of  chaperons, 
and  Kedzie  was  saved  from  any  danger  of  falling  in  love 
with  the  unspeakably  beautiful  leading  man  by  the 
ferocity  of  her  jealousy  of  him.  She  had  once,  as  a  little 
girl  in  Nimrim,  Missouri,  nearly  swooned  at  the  glory  of 
this  Lorraine  Melnotte,  and  she  had  written  him  a  little 
letter  of  adoration,  one  of  some  nineteen  he  received  that 
day  from  lovelorn  girls  about  the  globe. 

When  she  met  him  first  in  the  studio  he  was  painted 
as  delicately  as  a  barber-pole,  and  he  stood  sweating  in  a 
scene  under  the  full  blast  of  a  battery  of  sick  green  Cooper- 
Hewitt  lights.  He  looked  about  three  days  dead  and 

229 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

loathsome  as  an  iguana.  He  was  in  full  evening  dress, 
and  Kedzie  had  always  marveled  at  the  snowiness  of  his 
linen. 

Now  she  saw  how  he  got  the  effect.  He  wore  a  yellow 
shirt,  collar,  tie,  and  waistcoat  in  order  that  the  photo- 
graphic result  should  be  the  purest  white.  The  yellow 
linen  was  the  completing  horror  under  the  spoiled  mustard 
color  of  his  face  with  its  mouth  the  color  of  an  over- 
ripe plum. 

His  expression  did  not  redeem  his  appalling  features 
that  day,  nor  did  his  language  help.  While  the  camera- 
man leaned  on  his  idle  machine  and  looked  weary  Lorraine 
Melnotte  was  having  a  sweet  little  row  with  the  actress 
playing  his  sainted  mother.  He  was  threatening  to  have 
her  fired  if  she  didn't  keep  her  place. 

That  finished  him  for  Kedzie.  She  could  not  tolerate 
professional  jealousy.  She  never  could.  Her  own  was 
merely  a  defense  of  her  dignity  and  her  rights  against 
the  peculiarly  impossible  people  who  infested  the  studio. 
That  was  Kedzie's  own  phrase,  for  she  had  not  lived  with 
a  poet  long  before  she  began  to  experiment  with  large 
words.  She  practised  before  a  mirror  any  phrases  she 
particularly  liked.  She  had  probably  heard  Ferriday  use 
the  expression  and  she  got  herself  up  on  it  till  she  was  glib. 
Anybody  who  can  be  glib  with  "peculiarly  impossible" 
is  in  a  fair  way  to  be  articulate.  All  Kedzie  needed  was  a 
little  more  certainty  on  her  grammar;  and  her  ear  was 
giving  her  that. 

Her  contempt  for  Lorraine  Melnotte  culminated  in  a 
dark  suspicion  that  that  was  not  his  real  born  name.  If 
Anita  Adair  was  Kedzie  Thropp  what  would  Lorraine 
Melnotte  have  been  ?  It  was  a  pretty  problem  in  algebra. 
But  Kedzie  despised  a  man  that  would  take  another  name. 
And  such  a  name — as  unworthy  of  a  man  as  a  box  of 
chocolate  fudge. 

So  the  image  of  Mr.  Melnotte  fell  out  of  the  niche 
in  her  heart  and  went  over  into  the  gallery  of  her  hates. 

230 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

She  fought  him  with  every  weapon  and  every  foul  thrust 
known  to  shy  little  women  in  dealing  with  big,  blustering 
men.  She  loved  to  call  him  " Melnit "  or  "naughty  Mel." 

He  was  lost  from  the  start  and  was  soon  begging  to  be 
released  from  his  contract.  The  backers  were  too  sure 
of  his  vogue,  however,  to  let  him  go,  and  it  was  none  of 
their  affair  how  fiercely  Adair  and  Melnotte  indulged 
in  mutual  loathing,  so  long  as  their  screen-love  was  so 
wholesomely  sweet. 

With  Ferriday  Kedzie's  relations  were  more  perilous. 
He  had  invented  her  and  was  patenting  her.  She  dreaded 
his  wisdom  and  accepted  his  least  theory  as  gospel — at 
first.  He  combined  a  remote  and  godlike  intellect  with 
a  bending  and  fatherly  grace.  And  now  and  then,  like 
the  other  gods  of  all  the  mythologies,  he  came  down  to 
earth  in  an  amorous  mood. 

Now  Kedzie's  surety  was  her  canny  realization  of  the 
value  of  tantalism.  She  was  not  long  left  in  ignorance  of 
his  record  for  flitting  fancy  and  she  felt  that  he  would  flit 
from  her  as  soon  as  he  conquered  her.  Her  duty  was 
plain. 

She  played  him  well  and  drove  him  frantic.  It  would 
have  been  hard  to  say  whether  he  hated  her  or  loved  her 
more  when  he  found  her  always  just  a  little  beyond.  He 
had  begun  with  the  greatest  gift  in  his  power.  He  had 
promised  her  world-wide  fame,  and  no  other  gift  could 
count  till  he  had  made  that  good.  And  it  would  take  a 
long,  long  while  of  incessant  labor  to  build. 

Ferriday  belittled  himself  in  Kedzie's  eyes  by  his 
groans  of  baffled  egotism.  She  could  read  his  plots  on  his 
countenance,  and  thwart  him  in  advance.  But  this  was 
not  always  easy  for  her,  and  again  and  again  he  had  only 
himself  to  blame  for  his  non-success  with  Kedzie's  heart. 
With  Kedzie's  fame  he  was  having  a  very  sudden  and 
phenomenal  triumph — if  anything  could  be  called  phenom- 
enal in  a  field  which  itself  was  phenomenal  always. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

FERRIDAY  did  not  know,  of  course,  that  Kedzie  was 
married.  She  hardly  knew  it  herself  now.  Gilfoyle 
had  been  three  weeks  late  in  sending  her  the  thirty  dollars' 
fare  to  Chicago.  Then  she  wrote  him  that  she  was  doing 
fairly  well  at  the  studio  and  she  would  stick  to  her  work. 
She  sent  him  oceans  of  love,  but  she  did  not  send  him  the 
thirty  dollars. 

Besides,  he  had  borrowed  it  of  her  in  the  first  place, 
and  she  had  had  to  borrow  more  of  Ferriday.  She  had 
neglected  to  pay  him  back.  She  needed  so  much  for  her 
new  clothes  and  new  expenses  innumerable  inflicted  on 
her  by  her  improved  estate. 

And,  of  course,  she  left  the  miserable  little  flat  on  the 
landlord's  hands.  He  wasted  a  good  deal  of  time  trying 
to  get  the  rent  paid.  Besides,  it  was  rented  in  Gilfoyle's 
name  and  he  was  safe  in  Chicago.  And  yet  not  very  safe, 
for  Chicago  has  also  its  Bohemia,  its  clusters  of  real  and 
imitation  artists,  its  talkers  and  dabblers,  as  well  as  its 
toilers  and  achievers. 

Gilfoyle  found  some  wonderful  Western  sirens  who 
listened  to  his  poetry.  They  were  new  to  him  and  he  to 
them.  His  Eastern  pronunciations  fascinated  them  as 
they  had  fascinated  Kedzie,  and  he  soon  found  in  them 
all  the  breeziness  and  wholesomeness  of  the  great  prairies 
which  are  found  in  the  mid- Western  women  of  literature. 

Gilfoyle  had  apparently  forgotten  that  his  own  wife 
was  a  mid-Westerness,  and  the  least  breezy,  wholesome, 
prairian  thing  imaginable.  He  saw  mid-Western  women 
of  all  sorts  about  him,  but  he  was  of  those  who  must  have  a 

232 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

type  for  every  section  of  humanity  and  who  will  not  be 
shaken  in  their  belief  by  any  majority  of  exceptions. 

When  Gilfoyle  got  Kedzie's  letter  saying  that  she  would 
not  join  him  yet  awhile  he  wrote  her  a  letter  of  poetic  grief 
at  the  separation.  But  poets,  like  the  rest  of  us,  are 
the  better  for  getting  a  grief  on  paper  and  out  of  the 
system. 

Kedzie  did  not  answer  his  letter  for  a  long  while  and  he 
did  not  miss  her  answer  much,  for  he  was  having  his  own 
little  triumphs.  The  advertisements  he  wrote  were  re- 
ceiving honorable  mention  at  the  office  and  he  was  having 
success  with  his  poetry  and  his  flirtations  of  evenings. 

He  returned  to  his  boarding-house  one  night  and  looked 
at  his  face  in  the  mirror,  stared  into  the  eyes  that  stared 
back.  A  certain  melting  and  molten  and  molting  lady 
had  told  him  that  he  had  poet's  eyes  like  Julian  Street's 
and  was  almost  as  witty.  Gilfoyle  tried  with  his  shaving- 
glass  and  the  bureau  mirror  to  study  the  profile  that  some- 
one else  had  compared  to  the  cameonic  visage  of  Richard 
Le  Gallienne. 

Gilfoyle  was  gloriously  ashamed  of  himself.  In  the 
voice  that  some  one  else  had  compared  to  Charlie  Towne's 
reading  his  own  verses  he  addressed  his  reflection  with 
scorn: 

"You  heartless  dog!  You  ought  to  be  shot — forgetting 
that  you  have  a  poor  little  deserted  wife  toiling  in  the 
great  city.  You're  as  bad  as  Lord  Byron  ever  was." 

Then  he  wrote  a  sonnet  against  his  own  perfidy  and 
accepted  confession  as  atonement  and  plenary  indulgence. 

He  was  one  of  those  who,  when  they  have  cried,  "  I  have 
sinned,"  hear  a  mysterious  voice  saying,  "Poor  sufferer, 
go  and  sin  some  more." 

So  he  did,  and  he  went  the  way  of  millions  of  lazy- 
minded,  lazy-moraled  husbands  while  Kedzie  went  the 
way  of  men  and  women  who  succeed  by  self-exploitation 
and  count  only  that  bad  morals  which  is  also  bad  busi- 
ness. 

233 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

And  that  was  the  status  of  the  matrimonial  adventure 
of  the  Gilfoyles  for  the  present.  It  made  no  perceptible 
difference  to  anybody  that  they  were  married — least  of  all 
to  themselves — for  the  present.  But  of  course  Kedzie 
was  obscurely  preparing  all  this  while  for  a  tremendous 
explosion  into  publicity  and  into  what  is  known  as  "the 
big  money."  And  that  was  bound  to  make  a  vast  dif- 
ference to  Gilfoyle  as  well  as  to  Mrs.  Gilfoyle. 

In  these  all-revolutionary  days  a  man  had  better  be  a 
little  polite  always  to  his  wife,  for  in  some  totally  un- 
expectable  way  she  may  suddenly  prove  to  be  a  bigger 
man  than  he  is,  a  money-getter,  a  fame  or  shame  acquirer 
— if  only  by  way  of  becoming  the  president  of  a  suffrage 
association  or  a  best-seller  or  an  inventor  of  a  popular  doll. 

And  again,  all  this  time — a  very  short  time,  considering 
the  changes  it  made  in  everybody  concerned — Ferriday 
was  Kedzie's  alternate  hope  and  despair,  good  angel  and 
bad,  uplifter  and  down-yanker. 

Sometimes  he  threatened  to  stop  the  picture  and  destroy 
it  unless  she  kissed  him.  And  she  knew  that  he  could  and 
would  do  almost  anything  of  that  sort.  Had  not  his 
backers  threatened  to  murder  him  or  sue  him  if  he  did 
not  finish  the  big  feature?  At  such  times  Kedzie  usually 
kissed  Ferriday  to  keep  him  quiet.  But  she  was  as  care- 
ful not  to  give  too  many  kisses  as  she  had  been  not  to  put 
too  many  caramels  in  half  a  pound  when  she  had  clerked 
in  the  little  candy-store.  Nowadays  she  would  pause  and 
watch  the  quivering  scale  of  policy  intently  with  one  more 
sweet  poised  as  if  it  were  worth  its  weight  in  gold.  The 
ability  to  stop  while  the  scale  wavers  in  the  tiny  zone  of 
just-a-little-too-little  and  just-a-little-too-much  is  what 
makes  success  in  any  business  of  man-  or  woman-kind. 

It  was  not  always  easy  for  Kedzie  to  withhold  that  extra 
bonbon.  There  were  times  when  Ferriday  raised  her 
hopes  and  her  pride  so  high  that  she  fairly  squealed  with 
love  of  him  and  hugged  him.  That  would  have  been  the 
destruction  of  Kedzie  if  there  had  not  been  the  oounter- 

234 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

weight  of  conceit  in  Ferriday's  soul,  for  at  those  times  he 
would  sigh  to  himself  or  aloud: 

"You  are  loving  me  only  because  I  am  useful  to  you." 

This  thought  always  sobered  and  chilled  Mr.  Ferriday. 
He  worked  none  the  less  for  her  and  himself  and  he  tried 
in  a  hundred  ways  to  surprise  the  little  witch  into  an 
adoration  complete  enough  to  make  her  forget  herself, 
make  her  capable  of  that  ultimate  altruism  to  which  a 
woman  falls  or  rises  when  she  stretches  herself  out  on  the 
altar  of  love. 

Ferriday  began  to  think  seriously  that  the  only  way 
he  could  break  Kedzie's  pride  completely  would  be  to 
make  her  his  wife.  He  began  to  wonder  if  that  were 
not,  after  all,  what  she  was  driving  at — or  trying  to  drive 
him  to. 

Life  will  be  so  much  more  wholesome  when  women  pro- 
pose marriage  as  men  do  and  have  a  plain,  frank  talk  about 
it  instead  of  their  eternal  business  of  veils  and  reticences, 
fugitive  impulses  real  or  coquettish,  modesties  real  or 
faked. 

Ferriday  could  not  be  sure  of  Kedzie,  and  he  grew  so 
curious  to  know  that  finally  he  broke  out,  "In  the  Lord's 
name,  will  you  or  will  you  not  marry  me,  damn  you?" 

And  Kedzie  answered:  "Of  course  not.  I  wouldn't 
dream  of  such  a  thing." 

But  that  did  not  prove  anything,  either.  Perhaps  she 
merely  wanted  to  trawl  him  along. 

She  had  Ferriday  almost  crazy — at  least  she  had  added 
one  more  to  his  manias — when  Jim  Dyckman  wandered 
into  the  studio  and  set  up  an  entirely  new  series  of  am 
bitions  and  discontents. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

HARITY  COE  forgot  her  great  moving-picture  enter- 
prise  for  a  time  in  the  agony  of  her  discovery  that 
her  husband  was  disloyal  and  that  the  Church  did  not 
accept  that  as  a  cancellation  of  her  own  loyalty. 

For  a  long  time  she  was  in  such  misery  of  uncertainty 
that  she  went  up  to  the  mountains  to  recover  her  strength. 
She  came  back  at  last,  made  simple  and  stoical  somehow 
by  the  contrast  of  human  pettiness  with  the  serenity  (as 
we  call  it)  of  those  vast  masses  of  debris  that  we  poetize 
and  humanize  as  patient  giants. 

Her  absence  had  left  Cheever  entirely  to  his  own  de- 
vices and  to  Zada's.  They  had  made  up  and  fought  and 
made  up  again  dozens  of  times  and  settled  down  at  length 
to  that  normal  alternation  of  peace  and  conflict  known  as 
domestic  life. 

With  Charity  out  of  the  way  there  was  so  little  interrup- 
tion to  their  communion  that  when  she  came  back  Zada 
forbade  Cheever  to  meet  her  at  the  station,  and  he 
obeyed. 

Charity  felt  that  she  had  brought  with  her  the  weight 
of  the  mountains  instead  of  their  calm  when  she  detrained 
in  the  thronged  solitude  of  the  Grand  Central  Terminal. 
And  the  house  with  its  sympathetic  family  of  servants 
only  was  as  home-like  as  the  Mammoth  Cave. 

She  took  up  her  work  with  a  frenzy.  The  need  of  a 
man  to  act  as  her  adjutant  in  the  business  details  was  im- 
perative. She  thought  of  Jim  Dyckman  again,  and  with  a 
different  thought. 

When  he  pleaded  to  her  before  she  had  imagined  that 

236 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

she  was  at  least  officially  a  wife.     Now  she  felt  divorced 
and  abandoned,  a  waif  on  the  public  mercy. 

She  wanted  to  talk  to  Jim  because  she  felt  so  disprized 
and  downtrodden  that  she  wanted  to  see  somebody  who 
adored  her.  She  felt  wild  impulses  to  throw  herself  into 
his  keeping.  She  wanted  to  be  bad  just  to  spite  the  bad. 
But  she  merely  convinced  herself  that  she  was  wicked 
enough  already  and  deserving  of  her  punishment. 

She  made  the  moving-picture  scheme  a  good  excuse 
for  asking  Jim  to  grant  her  a  talk — a  business  talk.  To 
protect  herself  from  him  and  from  herself  she  made  a 
convenience  of  Mrs.  Neff's  home.  Jim  met  her  there. 
She  was  not  looking  her  best  and  her  mood  was  one  of 
artificial  indirectness  that  offended  him.  He  never 
dreamed  that  it  was  because  she  was  afraid  to  show  him 
how  glad  she  was  to  see  him. 

He  was  furious  at  her — so  he  said  he  would  do  her  bid- 
ding. She  dumped  the  financial  and  mechanical  ends  of 
the  enterprise  on  his  hands  and  he  accepted  the  burden. 
He  had  nothing  else  pressing  for  his  time. 

One  of  his  first  duties,  Charity  told  him,  was  to  call  at 
the  Hyperfilm  Studio  and  try  to  engage  that  Mr.  Ferriday 
for  director  and  learn  the  ropes. 

"  While  you're  there  you  might  inquire  about  that  little 
girl  you  pulled  out  of  the  pool.  I  sent  her  there.  They 
promised  her  a  job.  Her  name  was —  I  have  it  at  home 
in  my  address-book.  I'll  telephone  it  to  you." 

And  she  did.  She  had  no  more  acquaintance  with  the 
history  Kedzie  was  making  in  the  moving-picture  world 
than  she  had  of  the  sensational  rise  of  the  latest  politician 
in  Tibet.  Neither  had  Jim. 

He  had  been  traveling  about  on  his  mother's  yacht 
and  in  less  correct  societies,  trying  to  convince  himself 
that  he  was  cured  of  Charity.  He  did  not  know  that 
the  first  pictures  of  Anita  Adair  were  causing  lines  to 
gather  outside  the  moving-picture  theaters  of  numberless 
cities  and  towns. 

237 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

When  his  car  halted  before  the  big  studio  where  Ferriday 
was  high  priest  Jim  might  have  been  a  traveler  entering  a 
temple  in  Lassa,  for  all  he  knew  of  its  rites  and  its  powers. 

No  more  did  the  doorman  know  the  power  and  place  of 
Jim  Dyckman.  When  Jim  said  he  had  an  appointment 
with  Mr.  Ferriday  the  doorman  thumbed  him  up  the 
marble  stairs.  There  were  many  doors,  but  no  signs  on 
them,  and  Dyckman  blundered  about.  At  length  he 
turned  down  a  corridor  and  found  himself  in  the  work- 
shop. 

A  vast  room  it  was,  the  floor  hidden  with  low  canvas 
walls  and  doors  marked  "Keep  out."  Overhead  were 
girders  of  steel  from  which  depended  heavy  chains  sup- 
porting hundreds  of  slanting  tubes  glowing  with  green  fire. 

From  somewhere  in  the  inclosures  came  a  voice  in  dis- 
tress. It  was  the  first  time  Dyckman  ever  heard  Ferri- 
day "s  voice,  and  it  puzzled  him  as  it  cried: 

"Come  on,  choke  her — choke  harder,  you  fool;  you're 
not  a  masseur — you're  a  murderer.  Now  drag  her  across 
to  the  edge  of  the  well.  Pause,  look  back.  Come  on, 
Melnotte:  yell  at  him!  'Stop,  stop,  you  dog!'  Turn 
round,  Higgins;  draw  your  knife.  Go  to  it  now!  Give 
'em  a  real  fight.  That's  all  right.  Only  a  little  cut. 
The  blood  looks  good.  Get  up,  Miss  Adair;  crawl  away 
on  hands  and  knees.  Don't  forget  you've  been  choked. 
Now  take  the  knife  away,  Melnotte.  Rise;  look  tri- 
umphant; see  the  girl.  Get  to  him,  Miss  Adair.  Easy 
on  the  embrace:  you're  a  shy  little  thing.  'My  hero! 
you  have  saved  me!'  Now,  Melnotte:  'Clarice!  it  is 
you!  you!'  Cut!  How  many  feet,  Jones? 

"Now  we'll  take  the  scene  in  the  vat  of  sulphuric  acid. 
Is  the  tank  ready?  You  go  lie  down  and  rest,  Miss 
Adair.  We  won't  want  you  for  half  an  hour." 

As  Kedzie  left  the  scene  she  found  Dyckman  waiting 
for  her.  He  lifted  his  hat  and  spoke  down  at  her : 

"Pardon  me,  but  you're  Miss  Adair,  aren't  you?" 

"Yes,"  said  Kedzie,  with  as  much  modesty  as  a  queen 
238 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

could  show,  incidentally  noting  that  the  man  who  be- 
spoke her  so  timidly  was  plainly  a  real  swell.  She  was 
getting  so  now  that  she  could  tell  the  real  from  the  plated. 

"I  heard  them  murdering  you  in  there  and  I —  Well, 
Mrs.  Cheever  asked  me  to  look  you  up  and  see  how 
you  were  getting  along.  I  see  you  are." 

"Mrs.  Cheever!"  said  Kedzie,  searching  her  memory. 
Then,  with  great  kindliness,  "Oh  yes!  I  remember  her." 

"You've  forgotten  me,  I  suppose.  I  had  the  pleasure 
— the  sad  pleasure  of  helping  you  out  of  the  water  at 
Mrs.  Noxon's." 

"Oh,  Lord,  yes,"  Kedzie  cried,  forgetting  her  rank. 
"You're  Jim  Dyckman — I  mean,  Mr.  Dyckman." 

"So  you  remember  my  name,"  he  flushed.  "Well,  I 
must  say!" 

"I  didn't  remember  to  thank  you,"  said  Kedzie.  "I 
was  all  damp  and  mad.  I've  often  thought  of  writing 
to  you."  And  she  had. 

"I  wish  you  had,"  said  Dyckman.     "Well,  well!" 

He  didn't  know  what  to  say,  and  so  he  laughed  and  she 
laughed  and  they  were  well  acquainted.  Then  he  thought 
of  a  good  one. 

"I  pulled  you  out  of  the  cold  water,  so  it's  your  turn 
to  pull  me  out  of  the  hot." 

"What  hot?"  said  Kedzie. 

"I've  been  sent  up  here  to  learn  the  trade." 

Kedzie  had  a  horrible  feeling  that  he  must  have  lost  his 
money.  Wouldn't  it  be  just  her  luck  to  meet  her  first 
millionaire  after  he  had  become  an  ex-? 

But  Dyckman  said  that  he  had  come  to  try  and  engage 
Mr.  Ferriday,  and  that  sounded  so  splendid  to  Kedzie 
that  she  snuggled  closer.  Ordinarily  when  a  woman 
cowers  under  the  eaves  of  a  man's  shoulder  it  is  taken  for  a 
signal  for  amiabilities  to  begin. 

Dyckman  could  not  imagine  that  Kedzie  was  already 
as  bad  as  all  that.  She  wasn't.  She  was  just  trying  to 
get  as  close  as  she  could  to  a  million  dollars.  Her  feelings 

239 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

were  as  innocent  and  as  imbecile  as  those  of  the  mobs  that 
stand  in  line  for  the  privilege  of  pump-handling  a  politician. 

Jim  Dyckman  kept  forgetting  that  he  was  so  rich. 
He  hated  to  be  reminded  of  it.  He  did  not  suspect 
Kedzie  of  such  a  thought.  He  stared  down  at  her  and 
thought  she  was  cruelly  pretty.  He  wanted  to  tell  her  so, 
but  he  found  himself  saying: 

"But  I  mustn't  keep  you.  I  heard  somebody  say  that 
you  were  to  lie  down  and  rest  up." 

"Oh,  that  was  only  Mr.  Ferriday.     I'm  not  tired  a  bit." 

"Ferriday.  Oh  yes,  I'm  forgetting  him.  He's  the 
feller  I've  come  to  see." 

' '  He  can't  be  approached  when  he's  working.  Sit  down, 
won't  you?" 

He  sat  down  on  an  old  bench  and  she  sat  down,  too. 
She  had  never  felt  quite  so  contented  as  this.  And  Dyck- 
man had  not  felt  so  teased  by  beauty  in  a  longer  time  than 
he  could  remember. 

Kedzie  was  as  exotic  to  him  as  a  Japanese  doll.  Her 
face  was  painted  in  picturesque  blotches  that  reminded 
him  of  a  toy-shop.  Her  eyes  were  made  up  with  a  delicate 
green  that  gave  them  an  effect  unknown  to  him. 

She  was  dressed  as  a  young  farm  girl  with  a  sunbonnet 
a-dangle  at  the  back  of  her  neck,  her  curls  trailing  across 
her  rounded  shoulders  and  down  upon  her  dreamy  bosom. 
She  sat  and  swung  her  little  feet  and  looked  up  at  him 
sidewise. 

He  forgot  all  about  Ferriday,  and  when  Ferriday  came 
along  did  not  see  him.  Kedzie  did  not  tell  him.  She 
pretended  not  to  see  Ferriday,  though  she  enjoyed  enor- 
mously the  shock  it  gave  him  to  find  her  so  much  at  ease 
with  that  big  stranger. 

Ferriday  was  so  indignant  at  being  snubbed  in  his  own 
domain  by  his  own  creation  that  he  sent  Garfinkel  to  see 
who  the  fellow  was  and  throw  him  out.  Garfinkel  came 
back  with  Dyckman,  followed  by  Kedzie. 

Before  Garfinkel  could  present  Dyckman  to  the  great 
240 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Ferriday,  Kedzie  made  the  introduction.  Dyckman  was 
already  her  own  property.  She  had  seen  him  first. 

Ferriday  was  jolted  by  the  impact  of  the  great  name 
of  Dyckman.  He  was  restored  by  the  suppliant  attitude 
of  his  visitor.  He  said  that  he  doubted  if  he  could  find 
the  time  to  direct  an  amateur  picture.  Dyckman  hast- 
ened to  say: 

"Of  course,  money  is  no  object  to  us  .  .  ." 

"Nor  to  me,"  Ferriday  said,  coldly. 

Dyckman  went  on  as  if  he  had  not  heard:  "...  Except 
that  the  more  the  show  costs  the  less  there  is  for  the 
charity." 

"  I  should  be  glad  to  donate  my  services  to  the  cause," 
said  Ferriday,  who  could  be  magnificent. 

"Three  cheers  for  you!"  said  Dyckman,  who  could 
not. 

Ferriday  had  neither  the  time  nor  the  patience  for  the 
task.  But  when  the  chance  came  to  dazzle  the  rich  by  the 
rich  generosity  of  working  for  nothing,  he  could  not 
afford  to  let  it  pass.  To  tip  a  millionaire !  He  had  to  do 
that. 

He  saw  incidentally  that  Kedzie  was  fairly  hypnotized 
by  Dyckman  and  Dyckman  by  her.  His  first  flare  of 
jealousy  died  out.  To  be  cut  out  by  a  prince  has  always 
been  a  kind  of  ennoblement  in  itself. 

Also  one  of  Ferriday's  inspirations  came  to  him.  If 
he  could  get  those  two  infatuated  with  each  other  it  would 
not  only  take  Kedzie  off  his  heart,  but  it  might  be  made  to 
redound  to  the  further  advantage  of  his  own  genius.  A 
scheme  occurred  to  him.  He  was  building  the  scenario 
of  it  in  the  back  room  of  his  head  while  his  guest  occupied 
his  parlor. 

He  wanted  to  be  alone  and  he  wanted  Dyckman  and 
Kedzie  to  be  alone  together.  And  so  did  Kedzie.  Ferri- 
day suggested: 

"Perhaps  Mr.  Dyckman  would  like  to  look  over  the 
studio — and  perhaps  Miss  Adair  would  show  him  about." 

241 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Kedzie  started  to  cry,  "You  bet  your  boots,"  but  she 
caught  herself  in  time  and  shifted  to,  "I  should  be 
chawmed."  Millionaires  did  not  use  plain  words. 

Then  Dyckman  said,  "Great!" 

He  followed  Kedzie  wherever  she  led.  He  was  as 
awkward  and  out  of  place  as  a  school-boy  at  his  first  big 
dance.  Kedzie  showed  him  a  murder  scene  being  enacted 
under  the  bluesome  light.  She  took  great  pains  not  to 
let  any  of  it  stain  her  skin.  She  showed  him  a  comic 
scene  with  a  skeletonic  man  on  a  comic  bicycle.  Dyck- 
man roared  when  the  other  comedian  lubricated  the 
cyclist's  joints  with  an  oil-can. 

Kedzie  showed  him  the  projection-room  and  told  the 
operator  to  run  off  a  bit  of  a  scene  in  which  she  was  re- 
vealed to  no  disadvantage.  She  sat  alone  in  the  dark  with 
a  million  dollars  that  were  crazy  about  her.  She  could 
tell  that  Dyckman  was  tremendously  excited. 

Here  at  last  was  her  long-sought  opportunity  to  rebuff 
the  advances  of  a  wicked  plutocrat.  But  he  didn't  make 
any,  and  she  might  not  have  rebuffed  them.  Still,  the 
air  was  a-quiver  with  that  electricity  generated  almost 
audibly  by  a  man  and  a  woman  alone  in  the  dark. 

Dyckman  was  ashamed  of  himself  and  of  his  arm  for 
wanting  to  gather  in  that  delectable  partridge,  but  he 
behaved  himself  admirably. 

He  told  her  that  she  was  a  "corker,"  a  "dream,"  and 
"one  sweet  song,"  and  that  the  picture  did  not  do  her 
justice. 

Kedzie  showed  him  the  other  departments  of  the  picture- 
factory  and  he  was  amazed  at  all  she  knew.  So  was  she. 
He  -stayed  a  long  while  and  saw  everything  and  yet  he 
said  he  would  come  again. 

He  suggested  that  it  might  be  nice  if  Mr.  Ferriday  and 
Miss  Adair  would  dine  with  him  soon.  Ferriday  was  free 
"to-morrow,"  and  so  they  made  it  to-morrow  evening  at 
the  Vanderbilt. 

Kedzie  was  there  and  Dyckman  was  there,  but  a  boy 

242 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

brought  a  note  from  Mr.  Ferriday  saying  that  he  was 
unavoidably  prevented  from  being  present. 

Dyckman  grinned:  "We'll  have  to  bear  up  under  it  the 
best  we  can.  You  won't  run  away  just  because  your 
chaperon  is  gone,  will  you?" 

Kedzie  smiled  and  said  she  would  stay.  But  she  was 
puzzled.  What  was  Ferriday  up  to?  One  always  sus- 
pected that  Ferriday  was  up  to  something  and  thinking 
of  something  other  than  what  he  did  or  said. 

Kedzie  was  not  ashamed  of  her  clothes  this  time.  In- 
deed, when  she  gave  her  opera-cloak  to  the  maid  she  came 
out  so  resplendent  that  Jim  Dyckman  said: 

"Zowie!  but  you're  a —  Whew!  aren't  you  great? 
Some  change-o  from  the  little  farm  girl  I  saw  up  at  the 
studio.  I  don't  suppose  you'll  eat  anything  but  a  little 
bird-seed." 

She  was  elated  to  see  the  mattre  d'hotel  shake  hands  with 
her  escort  and  ask  him  how  he  was  and  where  he  had  been. 
Jim  apologized  for  neglecting  to  call  recently,  and  the  two 
sauntered  like  friends  across  to  a  table  where  half  a  dozen 
waiters  bowed  and  smiled  and  welcomed  the  prodigal  home. 

When  they  were  seated  the  head  waiter  said,  "The 
moosels  vit  sauce  mariniere  are  nize  to-nide." 

Dyckman  shook  his  head:  "Ump-umm!  I'm  on  the 
water-wagon  and  the  diet  kitchen.  Miss  Adair  can  go  as 
far  as  she  likes,  but  I've  got  to  stick  to  a  little  thick  soup, 
a  big,  thick  steak,  and  after,  a  little  French  pastry,  some 
coffee,  and  a  bottle  of  polly  water — and  I'll  risk  a  mug  of 
old  musty."  He  turned  to  Kedzie:  "And  now  I've  or- 
dered, what  do  you  want?  I  never  could  order  for  any- 
body else." 

Kedzie  was  disappointed  in  him.  He  was  nothing  like 
Ferriday.  He  didn't  use  a  French  word  once.  She  was 
afraid  to  venture  on  her  own. 

"I'll  take  the  same  things,"  she  said. 

"Sensible  lady,"  said  Jim.  "Women  who  work  must 
eat." 

243 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Kedzie  hated  to  be  referred  to  as  a  worker  by  an  idler. 
She  little  knew  how  much  Jim  Dyckman  wished  he  were 
a  worker. 

She  could  not  make  him  out.  Her  little  hook  had 
dragged  out  Leviathan  and  she  was  surprised  to  find  how 
unlike  he  was  to  her  plans  for  her  first  millionaire.  He  ate 
like  a  hungry  man  who  ordered  what  he  wanted  and  made 
no  effort  to  want  what  he  did  not  want.  He  had  had  so 
much  elaborated  food  that  he  craved  few  courses  and 
simple.  He  said  what  came  into  his  head,  without  frills 
or  pose.  He  was  sincerely  delighted  with  Kedzie  and 
made  neither  secret  nor  poetry  of  it. 

Toward  the  last  of  the  dinner  Kedzie  ceased  to  try  to 
find  in  him  what  was  not  there.  She  accepted  him  as  the 
least  affected  person  she  had  ever  met.  He  could  afford 
to  be  unaffected  and  careless  and  spontaneous.  He  had 
nothing  to  gain.  He  had  everything  already.  Kedzie 
would  have  said  that  he  ought  to  have  been  happy  be- 
cause of  that,  as  if  that  were  not  as  good  an  excuse  for 
discontent  as  any.  In  any  case,  Kedzie  said  to  herself: 

"He's  the  real  thing." 

She  wanted  to  be  that  very  thing — that  most  difficult 
thing — real.  It  became  her  new  ambition. 

After  the  dinner  Dyckman  offered  to  take  her  home. 
He  had  a  limousine  waiting  for  him.  She  did  not  ask 
him  to  put  her  into  a  taxicab.  She  was  not  afraid  to  have 
him  ride  home  with  her.  She  was  afraid  he  wouldn't. 
She  was  not  ashamed  of  the  apartment-house  she  was 
living  in  now.  It  was  nothing  wonderful,  but  all  the 
money  had  been  spent  on  the  hall.  And  that  was  as  far 
as  Dyckman  would  get — yet. 

Kedzie  had  acquired  a  serenity  toward  all  the  world 
except  what  she  called  "high  society."  In  her  mind  the 
word  high  had  the  significance  it  has  with  reference  to 
game  that  has  been  kept  to  the  last  critical  moments,  and 
trembles,  exquisitely  putrid,  between  being  eaten  imme- 
diately and  being  thrown  away  soon. 

244 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

There  is  enough  and  to  spare  of  that  high  e'ement 
among  the  wealthy,  but  so  there  is  among  the  poor  and 
among  all  the  middlings.  Kedzie  had  met  with  it  on 
her  way  up,  and  she  expected  to  find  it  in  Dyckman. 
She  looked  forward  to  a  thrilling  adventure. 

She  could  not  have  imagined  that  Dyckman  was  far 
more  afraid  of  her  than  she  of  him.  She  was  so  tiny  and 
he  so  big  that  she  terrorized  him  as  a  mouse  an  elephant, 
or  a  baby  a  saddle-horse.  The  elephant  is  probably  afraid 
that  he  will  squash  the  little  gliding  insect,  the  horse  that 
he  might  step  on  the  child. 

The  disparity  between  Jim  Dyckman  and  Kedzie  was 
not  so  great,  and  they  were  both  of  the  same  species. 
But  he  felt  a  kind  of  terror  of  her.  And  yet  she  fascinated 
him  as  an  interesting  toy  that  laughed  and  talked  and 
probably  would  not  say  "Mamma!"  if  squeezed. 

Dyckman  had  been  lonely  and  blue,  rejected  and  de- 
jected. Kedzie  was  something  different.  He  had  known 
lots  of  actresses,  large  and  small,  stately,  learned,  cheap, 
stupid,  brilliant,  bad,  good,  gorgeous,  shabby,  wanton, 
icy.  But  Kedzie  was  his  first  movie  actress.  She  dwelt 
in  a  strange  realm  of  unknown  colors  and  machineries. 

She  was  a  new  toy  in  a  new  toyhouse — a  whole  Noah's 
ark  of  queer  toys.  He  wanted  to  play  with  those  toys. 
She  made  him  a  revenant  to  childhood.  Or,  as  he  put  it : 

"Gee!   but  you  make  me  feel  as  silly  as  a  kid." 

That  surprised  Kedzie.  It  was  not  the  sort  of  talk  she 
expected  from  a  world  which  was  stranger  to  her  than  the 
movie  studio  to  him.  He  was  perfectly  natural,  and  that 
threw  her  into  a  spasm  of  artificiality. 

He  sat  staring  down  at  her.  He  put  his  hands  under 
his  knees  and  sat  on  them  to  keep  them  from  touching  her, 
as  they  wanted  to.  For  all  he  knew,  she  was  covered  with 
fresh  paint.  That  made  her  practically  irresistible. 
Would  it  come  off  if  he  kissed  her?  He  had  to  find  out. 

Finally  he  said,  so  helplessly,  passively,  that  it  would 
be  more  accurate  to  say  it  was  said  by  him: 

245 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"  Say,  Miss  Adair,  I'm  a  dead-goner  if  you  don't  gimme 
a  kiss." 

Kedzie  was  horrified.  Skip  Magruder  would  have  been 
eleganter  than  that.  She  answered,  with  dignity: 

"Certainly,  if  you  so  desire." 

That  ought  to  have  chaperoned  him  back  to  his  senses, 
but  he  was  too  far  gone.  His  long  arms  shot  out,  went 
round  her,  gathered  her  up  to  his  breast.  His  high  head 
came  down  like  a  swan's,  and  his  lips  pressed  hers. 

Whatever  her  soul  was,  her  flesh  was  all  girlhood  in  one 
flower  of  lithe  stem,  leaf,  petal,  sepal,  and  perfume. 
There  was  nothing  of  the  opiate  poppy,  the  ominous  orchid, 
or  even  that  velvet  voluptuary,  the  rose.  She  was  like  a 
great  pink,  sweet,  shy,  fragrant,  common  wild  honeysuckle 
blossom. 

Jim  Dyckman  was  so  whelmed  by  the  youth  and  flavor 
of  her  that  his  rapture  exploded  in  an  unsmothered  gasp : 

' '  Golly !  but  you're  great ! ' ' 

Kedzie  was  heartbroken.  Gilfoyle  had  done  better  than 
that.  She  had  been  kissed  by  several  million  dollars, 
and  she  was  not  satisfied! 

But  Dyckman  was.  He  felt  that  Kedzie  had  solved 
the  problem  of  Charity  Coe.  She  had  cleared  his  soul 
of  that  hopeless  obsession — he  thought — just  then. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

WHEN  a  young  man  suddenly  goes  mad  in  a  cab, 
grapples  the  young  woman  who  has  intrusted 
herself  to  his  protection,  pins  her  arms  to  her  sides, 
squeezes  her  torso  till  her  bones  crunch  and  she  has  no 
breath  to  squawk  with,  then  kisses  her  deaf  and  dumb 
and  blind,  it  is  still  a  nice  question  which  of  the  two  is  the 
helpless  one  and  which  has  overpowered  the  other. 

Appearances  are  never  more  deceitful  than  in  such 
attacks,  and  while  eye-witnesses  are  infrequent,  they  are 
also  untrustworthy.  They  cannot  even  tell  which  of  the 
two  is  victim  of  the  outrage.  The  motionless  gazelle  in 
the  folds  of  the  constrictor  may  be  in  full  control  of  the 
situation. 

It  uadoubtedly  has  happened,  oftcner  than  it  should 
have,  in  the  history  of  the  world  that  young  men  have 
made  these  onsets  without  just  provocation  and  have 
been  properly  slapped,  horsewhipped,  or  shot  for  their 
unwelcome  violence.  It  has  also  happened  that  young 
men  have  failed  to  make  these  onsets  when  they  would 
have  been  welcome. 

But  the  perfection  of  the  womanly  art  of  self-pretense 
is  when  she  subtly  wills  the  young  man  to  overpower  her 
and  is  so  carried  away  by  her  own  success  that  she  forgets 
who  started  it.  She  droops,  swoons,  shivers  before  the 
fury  of  her  own  inspiration,  and  cries  out,  with  absolute 
sincerity:  "How  dare  you!  How  could  you!  What 
made  you!"  or  simply  moans,  "Why,  Oswald!"  and  re- 
sists invitingly. 

247 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Kedzie  had  been  hoping  and  praying  that  Jim  Dyckman 
would  kiss  her,  and  mutely  daring  him  to.  Yet  when  he 
obeyed  her  tacit  behest  and  asked  her  permission  she  was 
too  frightened  to  refuse.  He  was  stronger  than  she 
expected,  and  he  held  her  longer.  When  at  last  she  came 
out  for  air  she  was  shattered  with  a  pleasant  horror. 

She  barely  had  the  strength  to  gasp,  "Why,  Mr. 
Dyckman,  aren't  you  awful?"  and  time  to  straighten  her 
jumbled  hat  and  hair  when  her  apartment-building  drew 
up  alongside  the  limousine  and  came  to  a  halt. 

Dyckman  pleaded,  like  a  half-witted  booby,  "Let's 
take  a  little  longer  ride." 

But  she  remembered  her  dignity  and  said,  with  im- 
perial scorn,  "I  should  hope  not!" 

She  permitted  him  to  help  her  out. 

He  said:   "When  may  I  see  you  again?     Soon,  please!" 

She  smiled,  with  a  hurt  patience,  and  answered,  "Not 
for  a  long  while." 

He  chuckled :   ' '  To-morrow,  eh  ?    That's  great !' ' 

She  wished  that  he  would  not  say,  "That's  great." 
If  he  would  only  say,  "Ripping!"  or,  "I  say,  that's  rip- 
ping!" or,  "Awfully  good  of  you,"  or,  "No  end" — any- 
thing swagger.  But  he  would  not  swagger. 

He  escorted  her  to  the  elevator,  where  she  gave  him  a 
queenly  hand  and  murmured,  "Good  night!" 

He  watched  her  go  up  like  Medea  in  machina;  then  he 
turned  away  and  stumbled  back  into  his  limousine.  It 
was  still  fragrant  from  her  presence.  The  perfume  she 
was  using  then  was  a  rather  aggressive  essence  of  a 
lingering  tenacity  upon  the  atmosphere.  But  Dyckman 
was  so  excited  that  he  liked  it.  The  limousine  could 
hardly  contain  him. 

Kedzie  felicitated  herself  on  escaping  from  his  thrall 
just  in  time  to  avoid  being  stupefied  by  it.  She  thanked 
Heaven  that  she  had  not  flung  her  arms  around  him  and 
claimed  him  for  her  own.  She  had  the  cleverness  of  elu- 
sion that  her  sex  displays  in  all  the  species,  from  Cleo- 

248 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

patras  to  clams,  from  butterflies  to  rhinoceroses.  How 
wisely  they  practise  to  evade  what  they  demand,  leaving 
the  stupid  male  to  ponder  the  mysteries  of  womankind ! 

When  Kedzie  reached  her  mirror  she  told  the  approving 
person  she  found  there  that  she  was  doing  pretty  well  for 
a  poor  young  girl  not  long  in  from  the  country.  She 
postured  joyously  as  she  undressed,  and  danced  a  feminine 
war-dance  in  much  the  same  costume  that  she  wore  when 
Jim  Dyckman  fished  her  out  of  the  pool  at  Newport.  She 
sang: 

"I  dreamt  that  I  fell  in  a  mar-arble  pool 
With  nobles  and  swells  on  all  si-i-ides." 

She  had  slapped  her  rescuer's  hands  away  then  and 
groaned  to  learn  that  she  had  driven  off  a  famous  pluto- 
crat. But  now  he  was  back;  indeed  he  was  in  the  pool 
now,  and  she  had  him  on  her  hook.  He  had  grievously 
disappointed  her  by  turning  out  to  be  a  commonplace 
young  man  with  no  gilt  on  his  phrases.  But  one  must  be 
merciful  to  a  million  dollars. 

The  next  morning  she  dreamed  of  him  as  a  suitor  pre- 
senting her  with  a  bag  of  gold  instead  of  a  bouquet. 
Just  as  she  reached  for  it  the  telephone  rang  and  a  hall- 
boyish  voice  told  her  that  it  was  seven  o'clock. 

This  was  the  midnight  alarm  to  Cinderella,  and  she 
became  again  a  poor  working-girl.  She  had  to  abandon 
her  prince  and  run  from  the  palace  of  dreams  to  the  studio 
of  toil. 

She  was  a  trifle  surly  when  she  confronted  Ferriday. 
He  studied  her,  smilingly  queerly  and  overplaying  in- 
difference: 

"Have  a  nice  dinner  last  night?" 

Kedzie  fixed  him  with  a  skewery  glare:  "What's  your 
little  game?  Why  did  you  turn  up  missing?" 

"I  had  another  engagement.  Didn't  you  get  my 
note?" 

"Ah,  behave,  behave!"  said  Kedzie,  then  blushed  at  the 

249 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

plebeian  phrase.  She  was  beginning  to  have  a  quickly 
remorseful  ear.  As  soon  as  she  should  learn  to  hear  her 
first  thoughts  first,  and  suppress  them  unspoken,  she 
would  be  a  made  lady. 

"Oh,  you're  a  true  artist,  Anita,"  said  Ferriday. 
"Nothing  can  hinder  your  flight  into  the  empyrean." 

"Don't  sing  it.     Explain  it,"  Kedzie  sneered. 

Ferriday  laughed  so  delightedly  that  he  must  embrace 
her.  She  shoved  him  back  and  brushed  the  imaginary 
dust  of  his  contact  from  the  shoulders  that  had  but 
lately  been  compressed  by  a  million  dollars. 

"I  see  you  landed  him,"  said  Ferriday. 

"And  I  see  that  all  your  talk  about  loving  me  so  much 
was  just  a  fake,"  said  Kedzie. 

"Why  do  you  say  that?     I  adore  you." 

"  If  you  did,  would  you  throw  me  at  the  head  of  another 
fellow?"  asked  Kedzie. 

"If  it  was  for  the  advancement  of  your  career,  yes," 
Ferriday  insisted.  . 

"What's  Mr.  Dyckman  got  to  do  with  my  career?" 

"He  can  make  it,  if  he  doesn't  break  it." 

"Come  again." 

"If  you  fall  in  love  with  that  big  thug,  or  if  you  play 
him  for  a  limousine  like  a  chorus-girl  on  the  make,  your 
career  is  gone.  But  if  you  use  him  for  your  future — 
well,  I  have  a  little  scheme  that  might  bounce  you  up  to 
the  sky  in  a  hurry.  You  could  have  your  millionaire 
and  your  fame  as  well." 

"What's  the  little  scheme,  Ferri  darling?" 

"I'll  tell  you  later.  We've  got  to  go  to  the  projection- 
room  and  see  your  new  film  run  off.  It's  assembled,  cut, 
subtitled,  ready  for  the  market.  Come  along." 

Kedzie  went  along  and  sat  in  the  dark  room  watching 
the  reel  go  by.  Her  other  selves  came  forth  in  troops 
to  reveal  themselves:  Kedzie  the  poor  little  shy  girl,  for 
she  was  that  at  times;  Kedzie  the  petulant,  the  revenge- 
ful, the  forgiving;  Kedzie  on  her  knees  in  prayer — she 

250 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

prayed  at  times,  as  everybody  does,  the  most  villainous 
no  less  ardently  than  the  most  blameless ;  Kedzie  dancing ; 
Kedzie  flirting,  in  love,  tempted,  tipsy;  Kedzie  seduced, 
deserted,  forgiven,  converted,  happily  married;  Kedzie  a 
mother  with  a  little  hired  baby  at  her  little  breast.  There 
was  even  a  picture  of  her  in  a  vision  as  a  sweet  old  lady 
with  snowy  hair  about  her  face,  and  she  was  surrounded 
by  grown  men  who  were  her  sons,  and  young  mothers 
who  were  her  daughters.  The  unending  magic  of  the 
moving  pictures  had  enabled  her  to  see  hersel'  as  ithers 
saw  her,  and  as  she  saw  hersel',  and  as  nobody  should 
ever  see  her. 

Kedzie  doted  on  the  picture  of  herself  as  a  dear  old 
lady  leaning  on  her  old  husband  among  their  children. 
She  shed  tears  over  that  delightful,  most  unusual,  privi- 
lege of  witnessing  herself  peacefully,  blessedly  ancient. 

Whether  she  ever  reached  old  age  and  had  a  husband 
living  then  and  children  grown  is  beyond  the  knowledge 
of  this  chronicle  or  its  prophecy,  for  this  book  goes  only 
so  far  as  1917.  But  just  for  a  venture,  assuming  Kedzie 
to  be  about  twenty  in  1916,  that  would  make  Kedzie 
born  four  years  back  in  the  last  century.  Now,  adding 
sixty  to  1896  brings  one  to  1956;  and  what  the  world 
will  be  like  then — and  who'll  be  in  it  or  what  they  may  be 
doing,  how  dressing,  if  at  all,  what  riding  in,  fighting  about, 
agreeing  upon — it  were  folly  to  guess  at. 

It  is  safe  to  say  only  that  people  will  then  be  very  much 
at  heart  what  they  are  to-day  and  were  in  the  days  when 
the  Assyrian  women  and  men  felt  as  we  do  about  most 
things.  Kedzie  will  be  scolding  her  children  or  her 
grandchildren  and  telling  them  that  in  her  day  little  girls 
did  not  speak  disrespectfully  to  their  parents  or  run  away 
from  them  or  do  immodest,  forward  things. 

That  much  is  certain  to  be  true,  as  it  has  always  been. 
The  critics  of  then  will  be  saying  that  there  are  no  great 
novelists  in  1956  such  as  there  were  in  1916,  when  giants 
wrote,  but  not  for  money  or  for  cheap  sensations. 

251 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

They  will  laud  the  Wilsonian  era  when  America  not 
only  knew  a  millennium  of  golden  fiction,  poetry,  drama, 
humor,  sculpture,  painting,  architecture,  and  engineering, 
but  revealed  its  greatness  in  moving-picture  classics,  in  a 
lofty  conception  of  the  dance  as  an  eloquence;  when  the 
nation  acted  as  a  sister  of  charity  to  bleeding  Europe, 
pouring  eleemosynary  millions  from  the  cornucopia 
stretched  across  the  sea,  and  finally  entered  the  war  with 
reluctant  majesty  and  unexampled  might,  her  citizens 
unanimously  patriotic.  Ye  gods!  even  the  politicians 
will  be  statesmen  and  their  debates  classics. 

Critics  of  then  will  be  regretting  that  American  fiction, 
poetry,  drama,  art,  and  journalism  are  so  inferior  to 
foreign  work,  and  foreign  critics  will  admit  it  and  tell  them 
why.  Some  military  writers  will  be  pointing  out  that  war 
is  no  longer  possible,  and  others  will  be  crying  out  that  it  is 
inevitable  and  America  unprepared. 

Doctors  will  be  complaining  that  modern  restlessness  is 
creating  new  nervous  diseases,  as  doctors  did  in  1916 
A.D.,  B.C.,  and  B.A.  (which  is,  Before  Adam).  Doctors 
will  complain  that  modern  mothers  do  not  nurse  their  own 
babies — which  has  always  been  both  true  and  untrue — 
and  that  women  do  not  wear  enough  clothes  for  health, 
not  to  mention  modesty. 

In  fact,  Kedzie,  if  she  lives,  will  find  the  spirit  of  the 
world  almost  altogether  what  grandmothers  have  always 
found  it.  But  Kedzie  must  be  left  to  find  this  out  for 
herself. 

When,  then,  Kedzie  saw  how  beautifully  she  photo- 
graphed and  how  well  she  looked  as  an  old  lady,  she  wept 
rapturously  and  sighed,  "I'll  never  give  up  the  pictures." 

Ferriday  sighed,  too,  for  that  meant  to  his  knowing  soul 
that  she  was  not  long  for  this  movie  world.  But  he  did 
not  tell  her  so.  He  told  her: 

"You're  as  wise  as  you  are  beautiful.  You'll  be  as 
famous  as  you'll  be  rich.  And  this  Dyckman  lad  can 
hurry  things  up." 

252 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"How?"  asked  Kedzie,  already  foreseeing  his  game. 

"The  backers  of  the  Hyperfilm  Company  are  getting 
writer's  cramp  in  the  spending  hand.  They  call  it  con- 
servatism, but  it's  really  cowardice.  The  moving-picture 
business  has  gone  from  the  Golconda  to  the  gambling 
stage.  A  few  years  ago  nearly  anybody  could  get  rich 
in  a  minute.  A  lot  of  cheap  photographers  and  street-car 
conductors  were  caught  in  a  cloudburst  of  money  and 
thought  they  made  it.  They  treated  money  like  rain, 
and  the  wastefulness  in  this  trade  has  been  rivaled  by 
nothing  recent  except  the  European  war.  Some  of  the 
biggest  studios  are  dark;  some  of  the  leaders  of  yesterday 
are  so  bankrupt  that  their  banks  don't  dare  let  'em  drop 
for  fear  they'll  bust  and  blow  up  the  whole  business. 
Most  of  the  actors  are  not  getting  half  what  they're  adver- 
tised to  get,  but  they're  getting  four  times  what  they 
ought  to  get. 

"There  are  a  few  men  and  women  who  are  earning 
even  more  than  they  are  getting,  and  that's  a  million  a 
minute.  Now,  the  one  chance  for  you,  Anita,  is  to  have 
some  tremendous  personal  backing.  You've  come  into 
the  game  a  little  late.  This  firm  you're  with  is  tottering. 
They  blame  me  for  it,  but  it's  not  my  fault  altogether. 
Anyway,  this  company  is  riding  for  a  fall,  and  down  we 
may  all  go  in  the  dust  with  a  dozen  other  big  companies, 
any  day." 

Kedzie's  heart  stopped.  In  the  dark  she  clutched 
Ferriday's  arm  so  tightly  that  he  ouched.  To  have  her 
career  smashed  at  its  beginning  would  be  just  her  luck. 
It  grew  suddenly  more  dear  than  ever,  because  it  was 
imperiled.  The  thought  of  having  her  pictures  fail  of 
their  mission  throughout  the  world  was  as  hideous  as 
was  the  knowledge  to  Carlyle  that  the  only  manuscript 
of  his  history  was  but  a  shovelful  of  ashes. 

Ferriday  put  his  arm  about  her,  and  she  crept  in  under 
his  chin  for  safety.  She  felt  very  cozy  to  him,  there,  and 
he  rejoiced  that  he  had  her  his  at  last.  Then  as  before 

253 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

he  saw  that  he  was  no  more  to  her  than  an  umbrella  or  an 
awning  in  a  shower.  He  wanted  to  fling  her  away;  but 
she  was  still  to  him  an  invention  to  patent  and  promote. 
So  he  told  her: 

"If  you  can  persuade  this  Dyckman  to  boost  your  career, 
get  behind  you  with  a  bunch  of  kale  and  whoop  up  the 
publicity,  we  can  stampede  the  public,  and  the  little 
theater  managers  will  mob  the  exchanges  for  reels  of  you. 
It's  only  a  question  of  money,  Anita.  Talk  about  the 
Archimedean  lever !  Give  me  the  crowbar  of  advertising, 
and  I'll  set  the  earth  rolling  the  other  way  round  so  the 
sun  will  rise  in  the  west  and  print  no  other  pictures  but 
yours. 

"There  isn't  room  for  everybody  in  the  movie  business 
any  more.  There's  room  only  for  the  people  who  wear 
lightning-rods  and  stand  on  solid  gold  pedestals  that 
won't  wash  away.  Go  after  your  young  millionaire, 
Anita,  and  put  his  money  to  work." 

Kedzie  pondered.  She  brought  to  bear  on  the  problem 
all  the  strategic  intuition  of  her  sex.  She  saw  the  im- 
portance of  getting  Dyckman's  money  into  circulation. 
She  was  afraid  it  might  not  be  easy. 

Kedzie  sighed:  "It's  a  little  early  for  me  to  ask  a  gentle- 
man I've  only  met  a  couple  o'  times  to  kindly  pass  the 
millions.  He  must  have  met  a  lot  of  women  by  now 
who've  held  out  their  hands  to  him  and  said,  'Please,' 
and  not  got  anything  but  the  cold  boiled  eye.  I  don't 
know  much  about  millionaires,  but  I  have  a  feeling  that 
if  they  started  giving  the  money  out  to  every  girl  they 
met,  they'd  last  just  about  as  long  as  a  real  bargain  does 
in  Macy's.  The  women  would  trample  them  to  death 
and  tear  one  another  to  pieces." 

"But  Dyckman's  crazy  about  you,  Anita.  I  could  see 
it  in  his  eyes.  He's  plumb  daffy." 

"  Maybe  so  and  maybe  not.  Maybe  he's  that  way  with 
every  girl  under  forty.  I've  never  seen  him  work,  but 
I've  seen  him  in  the  midst  of  that  Newport  bunch  and 

254 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

they've  got  me  lashed  to  the  mast  for  clothes,  looks, 
language,  and  everything." 

"You're  a  novelty  to  him,  Anita.  He's  tired  of  those 
blasees  creatures." 

"They  didn't  look  very  blah-zay  to  me.  They  seemed 
to  be  up  and  doing  every  minute.  But  supposing  he  was 
crazy  about  me,. if  I  said  to  him,  '  You  can  have  two  kisses 
for  a  million  dollars  apiece?'  can  you  see  him  begin  to 
holler:  'Where  am  I?  Please  take  me  home!'" 

Ferriday  sighed:  "Perhaps  you're  right.  It  wouldn't 
do  to  give  a  mercenary  look  to  your  interest  in  him  too 
soon.  Let  me  talk  to  him." 

"What's  your  peculiar  charm?" 

"I'd  put  it  up  to  him  as  a  business  proposition.  I'd 
say,  "The  moving-picture  field  is  the  greatest  gold-field 
in  the  world.'  I'd  tell  him  how  many  hundred  thousand 
theaters  there  are  in  the  world,  all  of  them  eager  for  your 
pictures  and  only  needing  to  be  told  about  them.  I'd  tell 
him  that  for  every  dollar  he  put  in  he'd  take  out  ten,  in 
addition  to  furthering  the  artistic  glory  of  the  most  beauti- 
ful genius  on  the  dramatic  horizon.  I'd  show  him  how  he 
couldn't  lose." 

"But  you  just  said — " 

"Oh,  I  know,  but  we  can't  put  on  the  screen  every- 
thing we  say  in  the  projection-room.  And  it  is  a  fact 
that  there  is  big  money  in  the  movies." 

"There  must  be,"  said  Kedzie,  "if  as  much  has  been 
sunk  in  'em  as  you  say." 

"Yes,  and  it's  all  there  for  the  right  man  to  dig  up  if 
he  only  goes  about  it  intelligently.  Let  me  talk  to 
him." 

Kedzie  thought  hard.  Then  she  said:  "No!  Not  yet! 
You'd  only  scare  him  away.  I'll  do  my  best  to  get  him 
interested  in  me,  and  you  do  your  best  to  get  him  in- 
terested in  the  business;  and  then  when  the  time  is  just 
right  we  can  talk  turkey.  But  not  now,  Ferri,  not  yet." 

"You're  as  wise  as  you  are  beautiful,"  said  Ferriday, 

255 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

again.     "I  can't  see  your  beauty,  but  your  wisdom  shines 
in  the  dark.     We'll  do  great  things  together,  Anita." 

His  arm  tightened  around  her,  reminding  her  that  she 
was  still  in  his  elbow.  Before  she  was  quite  alive  to  his 
purpose  his  lips  touched  her  cheek. 

"Don't  do  that!"  she  snapped.     "How  dare  you!" 

He  laughed:  "I  forgot.  The  price  on  your  kisses  has 
just  skyrocketed  to  a  million  apiece.  Don't  forget  my 
commission." 

She  growled  pettishly.     He  spoke  more  soberly: 

"You  need  me  yet,  little  lady.  Don't  quench  my 
enthusiasms  too  roughly  or  I  might  take  up  some  other 
pretty  little  girl  as  my  medium  of  expression.  There  are 
lots  and  lots  of  pretties  born  every  minute,  but  it  takes 
years  to  make  a  director  like  me." 

And  she  knew  that  this  was  true. 

"I  was  only  fooling,"  she  said.  "Don't  be  mad  at  me. 
You  can  kiss  me  if  you  want  to." 

"I  don't  want  to,"  he  said,  as  hurt  as  an  overgrown 
boy  or  a  prima  donna. 

The  door  opened,  and  a  wave  of  light  swept  into  the 
room.  A  voice  followed  it. 

"Is  Miss  Adair  in  there?" 

"Yes,"  Kedzie  answered,  in  confusion. 

"Gent'man  to  see  you." 

It  was  Jim  Dyckman.  He  followed  closely  and  en- 
tered the  room  just  as  Ferriday  found  the  electric  button 
and  switched  on  the  light. 

Kedzie  and  Ferriday  were  both  encouraged  when  they 
saw  a  look  of  jealous  suspicion  cross  his  face.  Ferriday 
hastened  to  explain : 

' '  We've  been  editing  Miss  Adair's  new  film.  Like  to  see 
an  advance  edition  of  it?" 

"Love  to,"  said  Dyckman. 

"Oh,  Simpson,  run  that  last  picture  through  again," 
Ferriday  called  through  a  little  hole  in  the  wall. 

A  faint  "All  right,  sir"  responded. 
256 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Kedzie  led  Dyckman  to  a  chair  and  took  the  next  one 
to  it. 

Ferriday  beamed  on  them  and  switched  on  the  dark. 
Then,  as  if  by  a  divine  miracle,  the  screen  at  the  end  of 
the  room  became  a  world  of  life  and  light.  People  were 
there,  and  places.  Mountains  were  swung  into  view  and 
removed.  Palaces  were  decreed  and  annulled.  Fields 
blossomed  with  flowers;  ballrooms  swirled;  streets 
seethed. 

Anita  Adair  was  created  luminous,  seraphic,  composed 
of  light  and  emotion.  She  came  so  near  and  so  large 
that  her  very  thoughts  seemed  to  be  photographed.  She 
drifted  away;  she  smiled,  danced,  wept,  and  made  her 
human  appeal  with  angelic  eloquence. 

Dyckman  groaned  with  the  very  affliction  of  her 
charm.  She  pleased  him  so  fiercely  that  he  swore  about 
it.  He  cried  out  in  the  dark  that  she  was  the  blank- 
blankest  little  witch  in  the  world.  Then  he  groveled  in 
apology,  as  if  his  profanity  had  not  been  the  ultimate 
gallantry. 

When  the  picture  was  finished  he  turned  to  Kedzie  and 
said,  "My  God,  you're  great!"  He  turned  to  Ferriday. 
"Isn't  she,  Mr. — Fenimore?" 

"I  think  so,"  said  Ferriday;  "and  the  world  will  think 
so  soon." 

Kedzie  shook  her  head.  "I'm  only  a  beginner.  I 
don't  know  anything  at  all." 

"Why,  you're  a  genius!"  Dyckman  exploded.  "You're 
simply  great.  You  know  everything;  you — " 

Ferriday  touched  him  on  the  arm.  "We  mustn't  spoil 
her.  There  is  a  charm  and  meekness  about  her  that  we 
must  not  lose." 

Dyckman  swallowed  his  other  great's  and  after  pro- 
found thought  said,  "Let's  lunch  somewhere." 

Ferriday  excused  himself,  but  said  that  the  air  would 
be  good  for  Miss  Adair.  She  was  working  too  hard. 

So  she  took  the  air. 
17  2S7 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Dyckman  had  come  to  the  studio  with  Charity's  busi- 
ness as  an  excuse.  He  had  forgotten  to  give  the  excuse, 
and  now  he  had  forgotten  the  business.  He  did  not 
know  that  he  was  now  Kedzie  Thropp's  business.  And 
she  was  minding  her  own  business. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

DETER  CHEEVER  was  going  to  dictagraph  to  his 
1  wife.  The  quaint  charm  of  the  dictagram  is  that 
the  sender  does  not  know  he  is  sending  it.  It  is  a  good 
deal  like  an  astral  something  or  other. 

Peter  had  often  telegraphed  his  wife,  telephoned  her, 
and  wirelessed  her.  Sometimes  what  he  had  sent  her  was 
not  the  truth.  But  now  she  was  going  to  hear  from 
him  straight.  She  would  have  all  the  advantages  of  the 
invisible  cloak  and  the  ring  of  Gyges — eavesdropping 
made  easy  and  brought  to  a  science,  a  combination  of 
perfect  alibi  with  intimate  propinquity. 

Small  wonder  that  the  device  which  justice  has  made 
such  use  of  should  be  speedily  seized  upon  by  other 
interests.  Everything,  indeed,  that  helps  virtue  helps 
evil,  too.  And  love  and  hate  find  speedy  employment 
for  all  the  conquests  that  science  can  make  upon  the 
physical  forces  of  the  universe. 

How  Charity's  motives  stood  in  heaven  there  is  no 
telling.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  they  were  the  usual  human 
mixture  of  selfish  and  altruistic,  wise  and  foolish,  honor- 
able and  impudent,  profitable  and  ruinous.  She  came 
by  the  dictagraphic  idea  very  gradually.  She  had  plenti- 
ful leisure  since  she  had  taken  a  distaste  for  good  works. 
She  had  been  so  roughly  handled  by  the  world  she  was 
toiling  for  that  she  decided  to  let  it  get  along  for  a  while 
without  her. 

It  was  a  benumbing  shock  to  learn  definitely  that  her 
husband  was  in  liaison  with  a  definite  person,  and  to  be 

259 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

confronted  in  shabby  clothes  with  that  person  all  dressed 
up.  When  she  hurried  to  the  Church  for  mercy  it  was 
desolation  to  learn  from  the  pulpit  that  her  heart  clamor 
for  divorce  was  not  a  cleanly  and  aseptic  impulse,  but  an 
impious  contribution  to  the  filthy  social  condition  of  the 
United  States. 

Charity  had  no  one  to  confide  in,  and  she  had  no  new 
grievance  to  air.  Everybody  else  had  evidently  been  long 
assured  of  her  husband's  profligacy.  For  her  to  wake  up 
to  it  only  now  and  run  bruiting  the  stale  information 
would  be  a  ridiculous  nuisance — a  newsgirl  howling  yes- 
terday's extra  to  to-day's  busy  crowd. 

Besides,  she  had  in  her  time  known  how  uninteresting 
and  unwelcome  is  the  celebrant  of  one's  own  misfortunes. 
Husbands  and  wives  who  tell  of  their  bad  luck  are  enter- 
taining only  so  long  as  they  are  spicy  and  sportsman- 
like. When  they  ask  for  a  solution  they  are  embarrassing, 
since  advice  is  impossible  for  moral  people.  The  truly 
good  must  advise  him  or  her  either  to  keep  quiet  or 
to  quit.  But  to  say  "Keep  quiet!"  is  to  say  "Don't 
disturb  the  adultery,"  while  to  say  ' '  Quit !"  is  to  say  "  Com- 
mit divorce!"  which  is  far  worse,  according  to  the  best 
people. 

We  have  always  had  adultery  and  got  along  beautifully, 
while  divorce  is  new  and  American  and  intolerable.  Of 
course,  one  can  and  sometimes  does  advise  a  legal  separa- 
tion, but  that  comes  hard  to  minds  that  face  facts,  since 
separation  is  only  a  license  to — well,  we  all  know  what 
separation  amounts  to;  it  really  cannot  be  prettily 
described. 

Charity,  left  alone  at  the  three-forked  road  of  divorce, 
complacency,  or  separation,  sank  down  and  waited  in  dull 
misery  for  help  or  solution,  as  do  most  of  the  poor  way- 
farers who  come  upon  such  a  break  in  their  path  of 
matrimony.  She  imagined  Cheever  with  Zada  and  won- 
dered what  peculiar  incantations  Zada  used  to  hold  him  so 
long.  She  wished  that  she  had  positive  evidence  against 

260 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

him — not  for  public  use,  but  as  a  weapon  of  self-defense. 
She  felt  that  from  his  pulpit  Doctor  Mosely  had  chal- 
lenged her  to  a  spiritual  duel  in  that  sermon  against 
divorce  and  remarriage  of  either  guilty  or  innocent. 

Also  she  began  to  want  to  get  evidence  to  silence  her 
own  soul  with.  She  wanted  to  get  over  loving  Cheever. 
To  want  to  be  cured  of  such  an  ailment  is  already  the 
beginning  of  cure. 

Abruptly  the  idea  came  to  her  to  put  a  detective  on  the 
track  of  Zada  and  Cheever.  She  had  no  acquaintance  in 
that  field,  and  it  was  a  matter  of  importance  that  she 
should  not  put  herself  in  the  hands  of  an  indelicate  de- 
tective. She  ought  to  have  consulted  a  lawyer  first,  but 
her  soul  preferred  the  risk  of  disaster  to  the  shame  of 
asking  counsel. 

She  consulted  the  newspapers  and  found  a  number  of 
advertisements,  some  of  them  a  little  too  mysterious,  a 
little  too  promiseful.  But  she  took  a  chance  on  the 
Hodshon  &  Hindley  Bureau,  especially  as  it  advertised 
a  night  telephone,  and  it  was  night  when  she  reached  her 
decision. 

She  surprised  Mr.  Hodshon  in  the  bosom  of  his  family. 
He  was  dandling  a  new  baby  in  the  air  and  trying  not 
to  step  on  the  penultimate  child,  who  was  treating  one  of 
his  legs  as  a  tree.  When  the  telephone  rang  he  tossed  the 
latest  edition  to  its  mother  and  hobbled  to  the  table, 
trying  to  tear  loose  the  clinger,  for  it  does  not  sound  well 
to  hear  a  child  gurgling  at  a  detective's  elbow. 

When  Charity  told  Hodshon  who  she  was  his  eyes 
popped  and  he  was  greatly  excited.  When  she  asked 
Mr.  Hodshon  to  call  at  once  he  looked  at  his  family  and 
his  slippers  and  said  he  didn't  see  how  he  could  till  the 
next  day.  Charity  did  not  want  to  go  to  a  detective's 
office  in  broad  daylight  or  to  have  anybody  see  a  detective 
coming  to  her  house.  She  had  an  idea  that  a  detective 
could  be  recognized  at  once  by  his  disguise.  He  prob- 
ably could  be  if  he  wore  one:  and  he  usually  can  be, 

261 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

anyway,  if  any  one  is  looking  for  him.  But  she  could  not 
get  Hodshon  till  she  threatened  to  telephone  elsewhere. 
At  that,  he  said  he  would  postpone  his  other  engagement 
and  come  right  up. 

Charity  was  disappointed  in  Mr.  Hodshon.  He  looked 
so  ordinary,  and  yet  he  must  know  such  terrible  things 
about  people.  We  always  expect  doctors,  lawyers,  priests, 
and  detectives  to  show  the  scars  of  the  searing  things  they 
know.  As  if  we  did  not  all  of  us  know  enough  about 
ourselves  and  others  to  eat  our  eyes  out,  if  knowledge 
were  corrosive! 

Charity  was  further  disappointed  in  Hodshon's  lack 
of  picturesqueness.  He  was  like  no  detective  she  had 
read  about  between  Sherlock  Holmes  and  Philo  Gubb. 
He  was  like  no  detective  at  all.  It  was  almost  impossible 
to  accept  him  as  her  agent. 

He  seemed  eager  to  help,  however,  and  when  she  told 
him  that  she  suspected  her  husband  of  being  overly 
friendly  with  an  insect  named  Zada  L'Etoile,  and  that  she 
wanted  them  shadowed,  he  betrayed  a  proper  agitation. 

Now,  of  course,  women's  scandals  are  no  more  of  a 
luxury  to  a  detective  than  their  legs  were  to  the  'bus- 
driver  of  tradition  or  to  any  one  in  knee-skirted  1916. 
Mr.  Hodshon  was  a  good  man  as  good  men  go,  though  he 
was  capable  of  the  little  dishonesties  and  compromises 
with  truth  that  characterize  every  profession.  A  man 
simply  cannot  succeed  as  a  teacher,  lawyer,  doctor, 
merchant,  thief,  author,  scientist,  or  anything  else  if  he 
blurts  out  everything  he  knows  or  believes.  No  preacher 
could  occupy  a  pulpit  for  two  Sundays  who  told  just  what 
he  actually  thought  or  knew  or  could  find  out.  The  de- 
tective is  equally  compelled  to  manipulate  the  truth. 

Hodshon  gave  his  soul  to  Charity's  cause.  He  outlined 
the  various  ways  of  establishing  Cheever's  guilt  and 
promised  that  the  agency  would  keep  him  shadowed  and 
make  a  record  of  all  his  hours. 

"It  '11  take  some  time  to  get  the  goods  on  'em  good," 

262 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

he  explained,  "but  there's  ways  we  got.  When  we  learn 
what  we  got  to  know  we'll  arrange  it  and  tip  you  off. 
Then  you  and  me  will  go  to  the  door  and  break  in  on  the 
parties  at  the  right  moment,  and — " 

"No,  Thank  You!"  said  Charity,  with  a  firm  pressure 
on  each  word. 

"You  better  get  some  friend  to  go  with  us,  for  a  de- 
tective needs  c'roboration,  you  know.  The  courts  won't 
accept  a  detective's  uns'ported  testimony.  And  if  you 
could  know  what  some  of  these  crooks  are  capable  of 
you  wouldn't  wonder.  Is  that  all  right?  We  get  the 
goods  on  'em  and  you  have  a  friend  ready,  and  we'll  bust 
in  on  the  parties,  and — " 

"No,  thank  you!"  said  Charity,  with  undiminished 
enthusiasm. 

This  stumped  Mr.  Hodshon.  She  amazed  him  further. 
"I  don't  intend  to  bring  this  case  into  court.  I  don't 
want  to  satisfy  any  judge  but  myself." 

But  what  he  had  said  about  the  credibility  of  the  un- 
supported detective  had  set  Charity  to  thinking.  It  would 
be  folly  to  pay  these  curious  persons  to  collect  evidence 
that  was  worthless  when  collected.  She  mused  aloud: 

"Would  it  be  possible — of  course  it  wouldn't — but  if 
it  were,  what  I  should  like  would  be  to  be  able  to  see  my 
hu — Mr.  Ch — those  two  persons  without  their  knowing 
about  it  at  all.  Of  course  that's  impossible,  isn't  it?" 

"Well,  it  was  a  few  years  ago,  but  we  can  do  wonders 
nowadays.  There's  the  little  dictagraph.  We  could 
string  one  up  for  you  and  give  you  the  usual  stenographic 
report — or  you  could  go  and  listen  in  yourself." 

"Could  I  really?"  Charity  gasped,  and  she  began  to 
shiver  with  the  frightfulness  of  the  opportunity. 

"Surest  thing  you  know,"  said  Hodshon. 

"But  how  could  you  install  a  dictagraph  without  their 
finding  it  out?" 

"Easiest  thing  you  know.  We'll  probably  have  to 
rent  an  apartment  in  the  same  building  or  another  one 

263 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

near-by,  and — one  of  the  hall-boys  there  may  be  workin' 
for  us  now.  If  not,  we  can  usually  bring  him  in.  There's 
a  hundred  ways  to  get  into  a  house  and  put  the  little  dictor 
behind  a  picture  or  somewheres  and  lead  the  wire  out  to 
us." 

"But  can  you  really  hear — if  they  talk  low?"  Charity 
mumbled,  with  dread. 

"Let  'em  whisper!"  said  Hodshon.  "The  little  fellow 
just  eats  a  whisper.  Leave  it  to  us,  madam,  and  we'll 
surprise  you." 

The  compact  was  made.  Charity  suggested  an  ad- 
vance payment  as  a  retainer,  and  Hodshon  permitted 
her  to  write  a  check  and  hand  it  to  him  before  he  assured 
her  that  it  wasn't  necessary. 

He  went  away  and  left  Charity  in  a  state  of  nerves. 
Her  curiosity  was  a  mania,  but  she  feared  that  assuaging 
it  might  leave  her  in  a  worse  plight.  She  hated  herself 
for  her  enterprise  and  was  tempted  to  cancel  it.  But 
when  she  heard  Cheever  come  home  at  midnight  and  go 
to  his  room  without  speaking  to  her  she  felt  a  grim  resent- 
ment toward  him  that  was  like  a  young  hate  with  a  big 
future. 

Every  night  Charity  received  a  typewritten  document 
describing  Cheever's  itinerary  for  the  day.  The  mute,  in- 
glorious Boswell  took  him  up  at  the  front  steps,  heeled 
him  to  his  office,  out  to  lunch,  back  to  the  office,  thence 
to  wherever  he  went. 

The  name  of  Zada  did  not  appear  in  the  first  report  at 
all,  but  on  the  second  day  she  met  Cheever  at  luncheon, 
and  he  went  shopping  with  her.  Charity,  reading, 
flushed  to  learn  that  he  bought  her  neither  jewelry  nor 
hats,  but  household  supplies  and  delicacies.  He  went 
with  her  to  her  apartment  and  thence  with  her  to  dinner 
and  the  theater  and  then  back,  and  thence  again  after  an 
hour  to  his  home. 

The  minute  chronicle  of  his  outdoor  doings,  intercalated 
with  the  maddening  bafflement  of  his  life  in  that  im- 

264 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

penetrable  apartment,  made  such  dramatic  reading  as 
Charity  had  never  known.  She  grew  haggard  with  wait- 
ing for  the  arrival  of  her  little  private  daily  newspaper. 
When  she  saw  Cheever  she  could  hardly  keep  from 
screaming  at  him  what  she  knew.  His  every  entrance 
into  the  house  became  a  hideous  insult.  She  felt  that  it 
was  herself  who  was  the  kept  woman  and  not  the  other. 

She  longed  to  take  the  documents  and  visit  the  Rever- 
end Doctor  Mosely  with  them,  make  him  read  them  and 
tell  her  if  he  still  thought  it  was  her  duty  to  endure  such 
infamy.  She  felt  that  the  good  doctor  would  advise  her 
to  lay  them  before  Cheever  and  confound  him  with  guilt, 
bring  him  to  what  the  preachers  call  "a  realizing  sense" 
of  it  and  win  him  home. 

She  was  tempted  to  try  the  imaginary  advice  on 
Cheever,  but  something  held  her  back.  She  wondered 
what  it  was,  till  suddenly  she  came  to  a  realizing  sense 
of  one  fearful  bit  of  news :  her  soul  had  so  changed  toward 
him,  her  love  had  turned  to  such  disgust,  that  she  was 
afraid  he  might  come  back  to  her!  He  might  cast  off  his 
discovered  partner  in  guilt  and  renew  his  old  claim  to 
Charity's  soul  and  body.  That  would  be  degradation 
indeed ! 

Now  she  was  convinced  that  her  love  had  starved  even 
unto  death,  that  it  was  a  corpse  in  her  home,  corrupted 
the  air  and  must  be  removed. 


CHAPTER  XX 

lay  extended  on  her  chaise  longtte,  looking  as 
much  unlike  Madame  Recamier  as  one  could  look 
who  was  so  pretty  a  woman.  A  Sunday  supplement 
dropped  from  her  hand  and  joined  the  heap  of  papers  on 
the  floor.  Kedzie  was  tired  of  looking  at  pictures  of 
herself. 

She  had  had  to  look  over  all  the  papers,  since  she  was 
in  them  all.  At  least  her  other  self,  Anita  Adair,  was  in 
them. 

In  every  paper  there  was  a  large  advertisement  with  a 
large  picture  of  her  and  the  names  of  the  theaters  at  which 
she  would  appear  simultaneously  in  her  new  film.  In  the 
critical  pages  devoted  to  the  moving-picture  world  there 
were  also  pictures  of  her  and  at  least  a  little  text. 

In  two  or  three  of  the  papers  there  were  interviews  with 
the  new  comet;  in  others  were  articles  by  her.  These 
entertained  her  at  first,  because  she  had  never  seen  the 
interviewers  or  the  articles.  She  had  not  thought  many 
of  the  thoughts  attached  to  her  name.  The  press  agent 
of  the  Hyperfilm  Company  had  written  everything.  He 
reveled  in  his  new  star,  for  the  editors  were  cordial 
toward  her  "press  stuff."  They  "ate  it  up,"  "gave  it 
spread." 

This  was  the  less  surprising  since  the  advertising-man  of 
the  Hyperfilm  Company  was  so  lavish  with  purchase  of 
space  that  the  publishers  could  well  afford  to  throw  in  a 
little  free  reading  matter — especially  since  it  did  not  cost 
them  a  cent  for  the  copy. 

The  press  agent  unaided  has  a  hard  life,  but  when  the 

266 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

advertising-man  gives  him  his  arm  he  is  welcome  to  the 
most  select  columns. 

In  some  of  the  interviews  Kedzie  gave  opinions  she  had 
never  held  on  themes  she  had  never  heard  of.  When  she 
read  that  her  favorite  poet  was  Rabindranath  Tagore  she 
wondered  who  that  "gink"  was.  When  she  read  that 
she  owed  her  figure  to  certain  strenuous  flexion  exercises 
she  decided  that  they  might  be  worth  trying  some  day. 
Her  advice  to  beginners  in  the  motion-picture  field  proved 
very  interesting.  She  wondered  how  she  had  ever  got 
along  without  it. 

She  was  greatly  excited  by  an  article  of  hers  in  which 
she  told  of  the  terrific  adventures  she  had  had  in  and  out 
of  the  studio;  there  was  one  time  when  an  angry  tiger 
would  have  torn  her  to  pieces  if  she  had  not  had  the 
presence  of  mind  to  play  dead.  She  read  of  another  oc- 
casion when  she  had  either  to  spoil  a  good  film  or  en- 
danger her  existence  as  the  automobile  she  was  steering 
refused  to  answer  the  brake  and  plunged  over  a  cliff. 
Of  course  she  would  not  ruin  the  film.  By  some  miracle 
she  escaped  with  only  a  few  broken  bones,  and  after  a 
week  in  the  hospital  returned  to  the  interrupted  picture. 
These  old  stories  were  told  with  such  simple  sincerity 
that  she  almost  believed  them.  But  she  tossed  them 
aside  and  sneered: 

"Bunc!" 

She  yawned  over  her  own  published  portraits — and  to 
be  able  to  do  that  is  to  be  surfeited  indeed. 

Suddenly  Kedzie  stopped  purring,  thought  fiercely, 
whirled  to  her  flank;  her  hands  went  among  the  papers. 
She  remembered  something,  found  it  at  last,  an  article 
she  had  glanced  at  and  forgotten  for  the  moment. 

She  snatched  it  up  and  read.  It  discussed  the  earning 
powers  of  several  film  queens.  It  credited  them  with 
salaries  ten  or  twenty  times  as  much  as  hers.  Two  or 
three  of  them  had  companies  of  their  own  with  their 
names  at  the  head  of  their  films. 

267 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Kedzie  groaned.  She  rose  and  paced  the  floor,  shamed, 
trapped,  humbled.  The  misers  of  the  Hyperfilm  Com- 
pany paid  her  a  beggarly  hundred  dollars  a  week!  merely 
featured  her  among  other  stars  of  greater  magnitude, 
while  certain  women  had  two  thousand  a  week  and  were 
"incorporated,"  whatever  that  was! 

Kedzie  longed  to  get  at  Ferriday  and  tell  him  what  a 
sneak  he  was  to  lure  her  into  such  a  web  and  tie  her  up 
with  such  cheap  ropes.  She  would  break  her  bonds  and 
fling  them  in  his  face. 

She  slid  abruptly  to  the  floor  and  began  to  go  over  the 
film  pages  again,  comparing  her  portraits  with  the  portraits 
of  those  higher-paid  creatures.  She  hated  vanity  and 
could  not  endure  it  in  other  women;  it  was  a  mere 
observation  of  a  self-evident  fact  that  she  was  pret- 
tier than  all  the  other  film  queens  put  together.  She 
sat  there  sneering  at  the  presumptuousness  of  screen 
idols  whom  she  had  almost  literally  worshiped  a  year 
before. 

Then  something  gave  her  pause.  The  celluloid- 
queens  had  certain  pages  allotted  to  them,  the  actresses 
certain  pages. 

But  there  was  another  realm  where  women  were  por- 
trayed in  fashionable  gowns — debutantes,  brides,  matrons. 
And  their  realm  was  called  "The  Social  World."  These 
women  toiled  not,  earned  not;  they  only  spent  money 
and  time  as  they  pleased.  They  were  in  "society," 
and  she  was  out  of  it.  They  were  ladies  and  she  was  a 
working-woman. 

Now  Kedzie's  cake  was  dough  indeed.  Now  her  pride 
was  shame.  She  did  not  want  to  be  a  film  queen.  She 
did  not  want  to  work  for  any  sum  a  week.  She  wanted 
to  be  a  debutante  and  a  bride  and  a  matron. 

She  had  never  had  a  coming-out  party,  and  never  would 
have.  She  studied  the  aristocrats,  put  their  portraits 
on  her  dressing-table  and  tried  to  copy  their  simple 
grandeur  in  her  mirror.  But  she  lacked  a  certain  some- 

268 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

thing.  She  didn't  know  a  human  being  who  was  swell 
to  use  as  a  model. 

Oh  yes,  she  did — one — Jim  Dyckman. 

A  dark  design  came  to  her  to  dally  with  him  no  longer. 
He  had  dragged  her  out  of  that  pool  at  Newport ;  now  he 
must  drag  her  into  the  swim. 

The  telephone-bell  rang.     The  hall-boy  said: 

"A  gen'leman  to  see  you — Mistoo  Ferriday." 

"Send  him  along." 

"He's  on  the  way  now." 

"Oh,  all  right." 

As  Kedzie  hung  up  the  receiver  it  occurred  to  her  that 
this  little  interchange  was  about  the  un-swellest  thing 
she  had  ever  done.  She  had  been  heedless  of  the  con- 
venances. Her  business  life  made  her  responsible  only 
to  herself,  and  she  felt  able  to  take  care  of  herself  any- 
where. 

Now  it  came  over  her  that  she  could  not  aspire  to 
aristocracy  and  allow  negro  hall-boys  to  send  men  up 
in  the  elevator  and  telephone  her  afterward.  She  snatched 
up  the  telephone  and  said: 

"That  you?" 

"Yassum,  Miss  Adair." 

"How  dare  you  send  anybody  up  without  sending  the 
name  up  first?" 

"Why,  you  newa — " 

"Who  do  you  think  I  am  that  I  permit  anybody  to 
walk  in  on  me?" 

"Why,  we  alwiz— " 

"The  idea  of  such  a  thing!     It's  disgraceful." 

"Why,  I'm  sorry,  but—" 

"Don't  ever  do  it  again." 

"No'm." 

She  slapped  the  receiver  on  the  hook  and  fumed  again, 
realizing  that  a  something  of  elegance  had  been  lacking 
in  her  tirade. 

The  door-bell  rang,  and  she  did  not  wait  for  her  maid, 

269 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

but  answered  it  in  angry  person.  Ferriday  beamed  on 
her. 

"Oh,  it's  you.  You  didn't  stop  to  ask  if  I  was  visible. 
You  just  came  right  on  up,  didn't  you?" 

He  whispered:  "Pardon  me.  Somebody  else  is  here. 
Exit  laughingly!" 

That  was  insult  on  insult. 

"Stop  it!  There  is  not  anybody  else.  Come  back. 
What  do  you  want?" 

He  came  back,  his  laughter  changed  to  rage. 

"Look  here,  you  impudent  little  upstart  from  nowhere! 
I  invented  you,  and  if  you're  not  careful  I'll  destroy  you." 

"Is  that  so?"  she  answered;  then,  like  Mr.  Charles 
Van  Loan's  baseball  hero,  she  realized  with  regret  that 
the  remark  was  not  brilliant  as  repartee. 

Ferriday  was  too  wroth  to  do  much  better: 

"Yes,  that's  so.     You  little  nobody!" 

"Nobody!"  she  laughed,  pointing  to  the  newspapers 
spangled  with  her  portraits. 

Ferriday  snorted,  "  Paid  for  by  Jim  Dyckman's  money." 

"What  do  you  mean — Jim  Dyckman's  money?" 

"Oh,  when  I  saw  how  idiotic  he  was  over  you,  and  how 
slow  you  were  in  landing  him,  and  when  I  realized  that  the 
Hyperfilm  Company  was  going  to  slide  your  pictures  out 
with  no  special  advertising,  I  went  to  him  and  tried  to 
get  him  into  the  business." 

"You  had  a  nerve!" 

"Praise  from  Lady  Hubert!" 

"Whoever  she  is!    Well,  did  he  bite?" 

"Yes  and  no.  He's  not  such  a  fool  as  he  looks  in  your 
company.  He  has  a  hard  head  for  business ;  he  wouldn't 
invest  a  cent." 

"I  thought  you  said — " 

"But  he  has  a  soft  head  for  you.  He  said  he  wouldn't 
invest  a  cent  in  the  firm,  but  he'd  donate  all  I  could  use 
for  you.  It  was  to  be  a  little  secret  present.  He  told 
me  you  refused  to  accept  presents  from  him.  Did  you?" 

270 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Kedzie  blushed  before  his  cynic  understanding. 

He  laughed:  "You're  all  right.  You  know  the  game, 
but  you've  got  to  quicken  your  speed.  You're  taking  too 
much  footage  in  getting  to  the  climax." 

Kedzie  was  still  incandescent  with  the  new  information : 

"And  Jim  Dyckman  paid  for  my  advertising?" 

"  On  condition  that  his  name  was  kept  out  of  it.  That's 
why  you're  famous.  You  couldn't  have  got  your  face 
in  a  paper  if  you  had  been  fifty  times  as  pretty  if  he 
hadn't  swamped  the  papers  with  money.  And  he  would 
never  have  thought  of  it  if  I  hadn't  gone  after  him. 
So  you'd  better  waste  a  little  politeness  on  me  or  your 
first  flare  will  be  your  last." 

Kedzie  acknowledged  his  conquest,  bowed  her  head, 
and  pouted  up  at  him  with  such  exquisite  impudence  that 
he  groaned: 

"I  don't  know  whether  I  ought  to  kiss  you  or  kill  you." 

"Take  your  choice,  my  master,"  Kedzie  cooed. 

He  snarled  at  her:  "I  guess  the  news  I  bring  will  do 
for  you.  There  was  a  fire  in  the  studio  last  night.  You 
didn't  know  of  it?" 

Kedzie,  dumbly  aghast,  shook  her  head. 

"If  you'd  read  any  part  of  the  newspapers  except  your 
own  press  stuff  you'd  have  seen  that  there  was  a  war  in 
Europe  yesterday  and  a  fire  in  New  York  last  night.  I 
was  there  trying  to  save  what  I  could.  I  got  a  few 
blisters  and  not  much  else.  Most  of  your  unfinished  work 
is  finished — gone  up  in  smoke." 

"You  don't  mean  that  my  beautiful,  wonderful  films 
are  destroyed?" 

He  nodded — then  caught  her  as  her  knees  gave  way. 
He  felt  a  stab  of  pity  for  her  as  he  dragged  her  to  her 
chaise  longue  and  let  her  fall  there.  She  was  dazed 
with  the  shock. 

She  had  been  indifferent  to  the  destruction  of  fortresses 
and  cathedrals — even  of  Rheims,  with  its  titanic  granite 
lace.  She  had  read,  or  might  have  read,  of  the  air- 

271 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

ship  that  dropped  a  bomb  through  the  great  fresco  in 
Venice  where  Tiepolo  revealed  his  unequaled  mastery  of 
aerial  perspective,  taking  the  eye  up  through  the  dome 
and  the  human  witnesses,  cloud  by  cloud,  past  the  hier- 
archies of  angels,  past  Christ  and  the  Mother  of  God,  on 
up  to  Jehovah  himself,  bending  down  from  infinite 
heights.  The  eternal  loss  of  this  picture  meant  nothing 
to  her.  But  the  destruction  of  her  own  recorded  smiles 
and  tears  and  the  pretty  twistings  and  turnings  of  her 
young  body — that  was  cataclysm. 

She  was  like  everybody  else,  in  that  no  multiplication 
of  other  people's  torments  could  be  so  vivid  as  the  catching 
of  her  own  thumb  in  a  door.  Kedzie  was  too  crushed  to 
weep.  This  little  personal  Pompeii  brought  to  the  dust 
all  the  palaces  and  turrets  of  her  hope  upon  her  head. 
She  whispered  to  Ferriday: 

' '  What  are  you  going  to  do  ?  Must  you  make  them  over 
again?" 

He  shook  his  head.  "The  Hyperfilm  Company  will 
probably  shut  up  shop  now." 

"And  let  my  pictures  die?" 

He  nodded. 

She  beckoned  him  close  and  clung  to  him,  babbling: 
"What  will  become  of  me?  Oh,  my  poor  pictures!  My 
pretty  pictures!  The  company  owes  me  a  week's  salary. 
And  I  had  counted  on  the  money.  What's  to  become  of 
me?" 

Ferriday  resented  her  eternal  use  of  him  for  her  own 
advantages.  "Why  do  you  appeal  to  me?  Where's 
your  friend  Dyckman?" 

"I  was  to  see  him  this  evening — dine  with  him." 

"Well,  he  can  build  you  ten  new  studios  and  not  feel 
it.  Better  ask  him  to  set  you  up  in  business." 

Kedzie  revolted  at  this,  but  she  had  no  answer.  Ferri- 
day saw  the  papers  folded  open  at  the  society  pages.  He 
stared  at  them,  at  her,  then  sniffed: 

"So  that's  your  new  ambition!" 
272 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"What?" 

"'In  the  Social  World!'  You  want  to  get  in  with  that 
gang,  eh?  Has  Dyckman  asked  you  to  marry  him?" 

"Of  course  not." 

"Well,  if  he  does,  don't  ever  let  him  take  you  into  his 
own  set." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that?" 

"Just  to  warn  you.  Those  social  worldlings  wouldn't 
stand  for  you,  Anita  darling.  You  can  make  monkeys 
of  us  poor  men.  But  those  queens  will  make  a  little 
scared  worm  out  of  you  and  step  on  you.  And  they  won't 
stop  smiling  for  one  minute." 

"Is  that  so?"  Kedzie  snarled.     There  it  was  again. 

The  telephone  rang.  Kedzie  answered  it.  The  hall- 
boy  timidly  announced: 

"  Mistoo  Dyckman  is  down  year  askin'  kin  he  see  you. 
Kin  he?" 

"Send  him  up,  please,"  said  Kedzie.  Then  she  turned 
to  Ferriday.  "He's  here  —  at  this  hour!  I  wonder 
why." 

"I'd  better  slope." 

"Do  you  mind?" 

"  Not  in  the  least.  I'll  go  up  a  flight  of  stairs  and  take 
the  elevator  after  His  Majesty  has  finished  with  it.  Good- 
by.  Get  busy!" 

He  slid  out,  and  Kedzie  scurried  about  her  primping. 
The  bell  rang.  She  sent  her  maid  to  the  door.  Dyckman 
came  in.  She  let  him  wait  awhile — then  went  to  him 
with  an  elegiac  manner. 

She  accepted  his  salute  on  a  martyr-white  brow.  He 
said: 

"I  read  about  the  fire.  I  was  scared  to  death  for  you 
till  I  learned  that  all  the  people  were  safe.  I  motored 
up  to  see  the  ruins.  Some  ruins!  Like  to  see  'em?" 

"  I  don't  think  I  could  stand  the  sight  of  them.  They're 
my  ruins,  too." 

"How  so?" 

273 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"  Because  the  company  won't  rebuild  or  go  on,  and  most 
of  my  pictures  were  destroyed." 

"Your  pretty,  beautiful,  gorgeous  pictures  gone!  Oh, 
God  help  us!  That's  too  terrible  to  believe." 

She  sighed,  "It's  true." 

"Why,  I'd  rather  lose  the  Metropolitan  Art  Gallery 
than  your  films.  Can't  they  be  made  over?" 

"They  could,  but  who's  to  stand  the  expense?" 

"I  will,  if  you'll  let  me." 

"Mr.  Dyckman!" 

"I  thought  we'd  agreed  that  my  name  was  Jim." 

' '  Jim !    You  would  do  that  for  me !" 

"Why  not?" 

"But  why  so?'' 

"Because — why,  simply — er — it's  the  most  natural 
thing  in  the  world,  seeing  that —  Well,  you're  not  sitting 
there  pretending  that  you  don't  know  I  love  you,  are 
you?" 

"Oh  dear,  oh  dear!  It's  too  wonderful  to  believe,  you 
angel!" 

And  then  for  the  first  time  she  flung  her  arms  about  his 
neck  and  kissed  him  and  hugged  him,  knelt  on  his  lap 
and  clasped  him  fiercely. 

He  felt  as  if  a  simoom  of  rapture  had  struck  him,  and 
when  she  told  him  a  dozen  times  that  she  loved  him  he 
could  think  of  nothing  to  say  but,  "Say,  this  is  great!' 

She  forgave  him  the  banality  this  time.  When  she  had 
calmed  herself  a  little  she  said : 

"But  it  would  mean  a  frightful  lot  of  money." 

"Whatever  it  costs,  it's  cheap — considering  this." 
He  indicated  her  arm  about  his  neck.  "I  wouldn't  let 
the  world  be  robbed  of  the  pictures  of  you,  Anita,  not  for 
any  money."  He  told  her  to  tell  Ferriday  to  make 
the  arrangements  and  send  the  estimates  to  him.  And 
he  said,  "I  won't  ask  you  to  quit  being  photographed, 
even  when  we  are  married." 

"When  we  are  married?"  Kedzie  parroted. 
274 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Of  course!  That's  where  we're  bound  for,  isn't  it? 
Where  else  could  we  pull  up — that  is,  of  course,  assuming 
that  you'll  do  me  the  honor  of  anchoring  a  great  artist 
like  you  up  to  a  big  dub  like  me.  Will  you?" 

"Why — why — I'd  like  to  think  it  over;  this  is  so 
sudden." 

"Of  course,  you'd  better  think  it  over,  you  poor  angel!" 

Kedzie  could  not  think  what  else  to  say  or  even  what  to 

think.     The  word  "marriage"  reminded  her  that  she  had 

.    what  the  ineffable  Bunker  Bean  would  have  called  "a 

little  old  last  year's  husband"  lying  around  in  the  garret 

of  her  past. 

She  went  almost  blind  with  rage  at  that  beast  of  a 
Gilfoyle  who  had  dragged  her  away  and  married  her  while 
she  was  not  thinking.  He  must  have  hypnotized  her  or 
drugged  her.  If  only  she  could  quietly  murder  him! 
But  she  didn't  even  know  where  he  was. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

investigations  of  Messrs.  Hodshon  &  Hindley 
in  the  life  of  Zada  and  Cheever  prospered  exceed- 
ingly. In  blissless  ignorance  of  it,  Zada  had  been  in- 
spired to  set  a  firm  of  sleuths  on  Charity's  trail.  She 
wanted  to  be  able  to  convince  Cheever  that  Charity  was 
intrigued  with  Dyckman.  The  operators  who  kept  Mrs. 
Charity  Coe  Cheever  under  espionage  had  the  most  stupid 
things  to  report  to  Zada. 

To  Zada's  disgust,  Mrs.  Cheever  never  called  upon 
Jim  Dyckman,  and  he  never  called  on  her.  Zada  accused 
the  bureau  of  cheating  her,  and  finally  put  another  agency 
to  shadowing  Jim  Dyckman.  According  to  the  reports 
she  had,  his  neglect  of  Mrs.  Cheever  was  perfectly  ex- 
plained. He  was  a  mere  satellite  of  a  moving-picture 
actress,  a  new-comer  named  Anita  Adair. 

The  detectives  reported  that  such  gossip  as  they  could 
pick  up  about  the  studio  indicated  that  Dyckman  was 
putting  money  into  the  firm  on  her  account. 

"A  movie  angel!"  sneered  Zada..  She  had  wasted  a 
hundred  dollars  on  him  to  find  this  out,  and  two  hundred 
and  fifty  on  Mrs.  Cheever  to  find  out  that  she  was  intensely 
respectable.  That  was  bitter  news  to  Zada.  She  can- 
celed her  business  with  her  detective  agency.  And  they 
called  in  the  shadows  that  haunted  Charity's  life. 

The  detectives  on  Zada's  trail,  however,  had  more 
rewarding  material  to  work  with — although  they  found 
unexpected  difficulties,  they  said,  in  getting  the  dictagraph 
installed  in  her  apartment.  They  did  not  wish  to  ruin 
the  whole  enterprise  by  too  great  haste — especially  as 

276 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

they  were  receiving  eight  dollars  a  day  and  liberal  ex- 
penses per  man. 

At  last,  however,  Hodshon  sent  word  to  Mrs.  Cheever 
that  the  dictagraph  was  installed  and  working  to  a  T, 
and  she  could  listen-in  whenever  she  was  ready. 

Charity  was  terrified  utterly  now.  New  scales  were  to 
be  shaken  from  her  eyes  at  the  new  tree  of  knowledge. 
She  was  to  hear  her  man  talking  to  his  leman. 

She  had  almost  an  epilepsy  of  terror,  but  she  could 
not  resist  the  importunate  opportunity. 

She  selected  from  her  veils  a  heavy  cre'pe  that  she  had 
worn  during  a  period  of  mourning  for  one  of  her  husband's 
relatives.  It  seemed  appropriate  now,  for  she  was  going 
into  mourning  for  her  own  husband,  living,  yet  about  to 
die  to  her. 

She  left  the  house  alone  after  dark  and  walked  along 
Fifth  Avenue  till  she  found  a  taxicab.  She  gave  the 
street  number  Hodshon  had  given  her  and  stepped  in. 
She  kept  an  eye  on  the  lighted  clock  and  in  the  dark  sorted 
out  the  exact  change  and  a  tip,  adding  dimes  as  they  were 
recorded  on  the  meter.  She  did  not  want  to  have  to  pause 
for  change,  and  she  did  not  wish  to  make  herself  con- 
spicuous by  an  extravagant  tip. 

As  the  taxicab  slid  along  the  Avenue  Charity  wondered 
if  any  of  the  passengers  in  other  cabs  could  have  an  errand 
so  gruesome  as  hers.  She  was  tortured  by  fantastic 
imaginings  of  what  she  might  hear.  She  wondered  how  a 
man  would  talk  to  such  a  person  as  Zada,  and  how  she 
would  answer.  She  imagined  the  most  dreadful  things 
she  could. 

The  taxicab  surprised  her  by  stopping  suddenly  before 
a  brown-fronted  residence  adjoining  an  apartment-house 
of  (more  or  less  literally)  meretricious  ornateness.  She 
stepped  out,  paid  her  fare,  and  turned, to  find  Mr.  Hodshon 
at  her  elbow.  He  had  been  waiting  for  her.  He  recog- 
nized her  by  her  melodramatic  veil.  He  gave  her  needed 
help  up  a  high  stoop  and  opened  the  door  with  a  key. 

277 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

She  found  herself  in  a  shabby,  smelly  hall  where  no  one 
else  was. 

He  motioned  her  up  the  stairway,  and  she  climbed 
with  timidity.  At  each  level  there  were  name-plates 
over  the  electric  buttons.  The  very  labels  seemed  illicit. 
Hodshon  motioned  her  up  and  up  for  four  flights. 

Then  he  opened  a  door  and  stepped  back  to  let  her 
enter  a  room  unfurnished  except  for  a  few  chairs  and  a 
table.  Two  men  were  in  the  room,  and  they  were  laughing 
with  uproar.  One  of  them  had  a  telephone-receiver 
clamped  to  his  ear,  and  he  was  making  shorthand  notes, 
explaining  to  his  companion  what  he  heard. 

They  turned  in  surprise  at  Hodshon' s  entrance  and 
rose  to  greet  Charity  with  the  homage  due  so  great  a 
client. 

Charity  could  hardly  bespeak  them  civilly.  They  took 
her  curtness  for  snobbery,  but  it  was  not.  It  swept  over 
her  that  these  people  were  laughing  over  her  most  sacred 
tragedy. 

She  advanced  on  the  operator  and  put  out  her  hand 
for  the  headpiece  he  wore.  He  took  it  off  and  rubbed  it 
with  his  handkerchief,  and  told  her  that  she  must  remove 
her  hat  and  veil. 

She  came  out  startlingly  white  and  brilliant  from  the 
black.  She  put  the  elastic  clamp  over  her  head  and  set 
the  receiver  to  her  ear.  Instantly  she  was  assailed  by 
dreadful  noises,  a  jangle  of  inarticulate  sounds  like  the 
barking  of  two  dogs. 

"I  can't  hear  a  word,"  she  protested. 

"They're  talkin'  too  loud,"  said  the  operator.  "The 
only  way  to  beat  the  dictagraph  is  to  cut  the  wire  or  yell." 

"Are  they  quarreling,  then?"  Charity  asked,  almost 
with  pleasure. 

"Yes,  ma'am.  But  it's  the  lady  and  her  maid.  They 
been  havin'  a  terrible  scrap  about  marketin'.  He — Mr. 
Cheever — ain't  there  yet.  They're  expectin'  him,  though." 

Charity  felt  that  she  had  plumbed  the  depths  of  degrada- 
278 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

tion  in  listening  to  a  quarrel  between  such  a  creature  and 
her  maid.  What  must  it  be  to  be  the  maid  of  such  a 
creature!  She  was  about  to  snatch  away  the  earpiece 
when  she  heard  the  noise  of  a  door  opening.  She  looked 
toward  the  entrance  of  the  room  she  was  in,  but  the  door 
that  opened  was  in  the  other  room  in  the  other  building. 

The  voices  of  Zada  and  her  maid  stopped  jangling,  and 
she  heard  the  most  familiar  of  all  voices  asking: 

"What's  the  row  to-day?" 

There  was  an  extra  metal  in  the  timbre  and  it  had 
the  effect  of  an  old  phonographic  record,  but  there  was  no 
questioning  whose  voice  it  was. 

Zada's  voice  became  audibly  low  in  answer. 

"She  is  such  a  fool  she  drives  me  crazy." 

A  sullen,  servile  voice  answered:  "It  ain't  me's  the 
fool,  and  as  for  crazy — her  wantin'  me  to  bring  home  what 
they  ain't  in  no  market.  How  'm  I  goin'  to  git  what 
ain't  to  be  got,  I  asts  you.  This  here  war  is  stoppin' 
ev'y  kind  of  food." 

Cheever's  answer  was  characteristic.  He  didn't  believe 
in  servants'  rights. 

"Get  out.  If  you're  impudent  again  I'll  throw  you  out, 
and  your  baggage  after  you." 

"Yassar,"  was  the  soft  answer. 

There  was  the  sound  of  shuffling  feet  and  a  softly  closed 
door.  Then  Zada's  voice,  very  mellow: 

"  I  thought  you'd  never  come,  dearie." 

"Awfully  busy  to-day,  honey." 

"You  took  dinner  with  her,  of  course." 

"No.  It  was  a  big  day  on  the  Street,  and  there  was  so 
much  to  do  at  the  office  that  I  dined  down-town  at  the 
Bankers'  Club  with  several  men  and  then  went  back  to 
the  office.  I  ought  to  be  there  all  night,  but  I  couldn't 
keep  away  from  you  any  longer." 

There  were  mysterious  quirks  of  sound  that  meant  kisses 
and  sighs  and  tender  inarticulations.  There  were  cooing 
tones  which  the  dictagraph  repeated  with  hideous  fidelity. 

279 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Zada  asked,  "Did  he  have  hard  daydie  old  office-urns?" 

And  he  answered,  with  infatuated  imbecility,  "Yes,  he 
diddums,  but  worst  was  lonelying  for  his  Zadalums." 

"  Did  Peterkin  miss  his  Zadalums  truly — truly?" 

The  inveterate  idioms  of  wooers  took  on  in  Charity's 
ear  a  grotesque  obscenity,  a  sacrilegious  burlesque  of 
words  as  holy  to  her  as  prayer  or  the  sacred  dialect  of 
priests.  When  Zada  murmured,  "Kissings!  kissings!" 
Charity  screamed:  "Stop  it,  you  beasts!  You  beasts!" 

Then  she  clapped  her  hand  over  her  lips,  expecting  to 
hear  their  panic  at  her  outcry.  But  they  were  as  ob- 
livious of  her  pain  or  her  rage  as  if  an  interplanetary  space 
divided  them.  They  went  on  with  the  murmur  and 
susurrus  of  their  communion,  while  Charity  looked  askance 
at  the  three  men.  They  could  not  hear,  but  could  im- 
agine, and  they  stared  at  her  doltishly. 

"Leave  the  room!     Go  away!"  she  groaned. 

They  slipped  out  through  the  door  and  left  her  to  her 
shame. 

In  the  porches  of  her  ear  the  hateful  courtship  purled 
on  with  its  tender  third-personal  terms  and  its  amorous 
diminutives,  suffixed  ridiculously. 

"Zada.  was  af'aid  her  booful  Peterkin  had  forgotten 
her  and  gone  to  the  big  old  house." 

"Without  coming  home  first?" 

"Home!  that's  the  wordie  I  want.  This  is  his  homie, 
isn't  it,  Peterkin?" 

"Yessy." 

"He  doesn't  love  old  villain  who  keeps  us  apart?" 

"Nonie,  nonie." 

"Never  did,  did  he?" 

"Never." 

"Only  married  her,  didn't  he?" 

"That's  allie." 

"Zada  is  only  really  wifie?" 

"Only  onlykins." 

Charity  listened  with  a  greed  of  self-torment  like  a 
280 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

fanatic  penitent.  The  chatter  of  the  two  had  none  of  the 
indecency  she  had  expected,  and  that  made  it  the  more 
intolerably  indecent. 

She  saw  that  Cheever's  affair  with  Zada  had  settled 
down  to  a  state  of  comfort,  of  halcyon  delight. 

It  had  taken  on  domestication.  He  was  at  home  with 
her  and  an  alien  in  Charity's  home.  He  told  the  woman 
his  business  affairs  and  little  office  jokes.  He  laughed  with 
a  purity  of  cheer  that  he  had  long  lost  in  his  legal  estab- 
lishment. He  used  many  of  the  love-words  that  he  had 
once  used  to  Charity,  and  her  heart  was  wrung  with  the 
mockery  of  it. 

Charity  listened  helplessly.  She  was  as  one  manacled 
or  paralyzed  and  submitted  to  such  a  torture  as  she  had 
never  endured.  She  harkened  in  vain  for  some  hope- 
ful note  of  uncongeniality,  some  reassurance  for  her  love 
or  at  least  her  vanity,  some  certainty  that  her  husband, 
her  first  possessor,  had  given  her  some  emotion  that  he 
could  never  give  another.  But  he  was  repeating  to  Zada 
the  very  phrases  of  his  honeymoon,  repeating  them  with 
all  the  fervor  of  a  good  actor  playing  Romeo  for  the 
hundredth  time  with  his  new  leading  lady.  Indeed,  he 
seemed  to  find  in  Zada  a  response  and  a  unity  that  he  had 
never  found  in  Charity's  society.  Her  intelligence  was 
cruelly  goaded  to  the  realization  that  she  had  never  been 
quite  the  woman  for  Cheever. 

She  had  known  that  he  had  not  been  the  full  complement 
of  her  own  soul.  They  had  disagreed  fiercely  on  hundreds 
of  topics.  He  had  been  chilled  by  many  of  her  ardors, 
as  many  of  his  interests  had  bored  her.  She  had  sup- 
posed it  to  be  an  inevitable  inability  of  a  man  and  a 
woman  to  regard  the  world  through  the  same  eyes.  She 
had  let  him  go  his  way  and  had  gone  her  own.  And 
now  it  seemed  that  he  had  in  his  wanderings  found  some 
one  who  mated  him  exactly.  The  butterfly  had  liked  the 
rose,  but  had  fluttered  away;  when  it  found  the  orchid 
it  closed  its  wings  and  rested  content. 

281 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

It  was  a  frightful  revelation  to  Charity,  for  it  meant 
that  Cheever  had  been  merely  flirting  with  her.  She  had 
caught  his  eye  as  a  girl  in  a  strange  port  captivates  a 
sailor.  He  had  haunted  her  window  with  serenades. 
Finding  her  to  be  what  we  call  "a  good  girl,"  he  had 
called  upon  her  father  and  mother  that  he  might  talk  to 
her  longer.  And  then  he  had  gone  to  church  with  her 
and  married  her  that  he  might  get  rid  of  her  father  and 
mother  and  her  own  scruples.  And  so  he  had  made  her 
his  utterly,  and  after  a  few  days  and  nights  had  sailed 
away.  He  had  come  back  to  her  now  and  then  as  a  sailor 
does. 

Meanwhile  in  another  port  he  had  found  what  we  call 
"a  bad  woman."  There  had  been  no  need  to  serenade 
her  out  into  the  streets.  They  were  her  shop.  No  par- 
ents had  guarded  her  hours;  no  priest  was  intermediary 
to  her  possession.  But  once  within  her  lair  he  had  found 
himself  where  he  had  always  wanted  to  be,  and  she  had 
found  herself  with  the  man  she  had  been  hunting.  She 
closed  her  window,  drove  her  frequenters,  old  and  new, 
from  the  door;  and  he  regretted  that  he  had  given  pledges 
to  that  other  woman. 

It  was  a  pitiful  state  of  affairs,  no  less  pitiful  for  being 
old  and  ugly  and  innumerously  commonplace.  It  meant 
that  Cheever  under  the  white  cloak  of  matrimony  had 
despoiled  Charity  of  her  innocence,  and  under  the  red 
domino  of  intrigue  had  restored  to  Zada  hers. 

If  Charity,  sitting  like  a  recording  angel,  invisible  but 
hearing  everything,  had  found  in  the  communion  of  Zada 
and  Cheever  only  the  fervor  of  an  amour,  she  could  have 
felt  that  Cheever  was  merely  a  libertine  who  loved  his 
wife  and  his  home  but  loved  to  rove  as  well.  She 
had,  however,  ghastly  evidence  that  Cheever  was  only 
now  the  rake  reformed;  his  marriage  had  been  merely  one 
of  his  escapades;  he  had  settled  down  now  to  monogamy 
with  Zada,  and  she  was  his  wife  in  all  but  style  and  title. 

There  was  more  of  Darby  and  Joan  than  of  Elvira  and 
282 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Don  Juan  in  their  conversation.  He  told  Zada  with 
pride  that  he  had  not  had  a  drink  all  day,  though  he  had 
needed  alco-help  and  the  other  men  had  ridiculed  him. 
She  told  him  that  she  had  not  had  a  drink  for  a  week  and 
only  one  cigarette  since  her  lonely  dinner.  They  were  in 
a  state  of  mutual  reformation ! 

Where,  then,  was  the  sacrament  of  marriage?  Which 
of  the  women  held  the  chalice  now? 

It  was  enforced  on  Charity  that  it  was  she  and  not 
Zada  who  had  been  the  inspirer  and  the  victim  of  Cheever's 
flitting  appetite.  It  was  Zada  and  not  she  who  had  won 
him  to  the  calm,  the  dignity,  the  sincerity,  the  purity 
that  make  marriage  marriage.  It  was  a  hard  lesson  for 
Charity,  and  she  did  not  know  what  she  ought  to  do  with 
her  costly  knowledge.  She  could  only  listen. 

When  Zada  complained  that  she  had  had  a  dreadful 
day  of  blues  Cheever  made  jokes  for  her  as  for  a  child,  and 
she  laughed  like  the  child  she  was.  For  her  amusement 
he  even  went  to  a  piano  and  played,  with  blundering  three- 
chord  accompaniment,  a  song  or  two.  He  played  jokes 
on  the  keyboard.  He  revealed  none  of  the  self-conscious- 
ness that  he  manifested  before  Charity  when  he  ex- 
ploited his  little  bag  of  parlor  tricks. 

Charity's  mood  had  changed  from  horror  to  eager 
curiosity,  and  thence  to  cold  despair,  to  cold  resentment. 
It  went  on  to  cold  intelligence  and  a  belief  that  her  life 
with  Cheever  was  over.  Their  marriage  was  a  proved 
failure,  and  any  further  experiments  with  its  intimacies 
would  be  unspeakably  vile.  Or  so  she  thought. 

She  had  consented  to  this  dictagraphic  inspection  of  her 
husband's  intrigue  merely  to  confirm  or  refute  gossip. 
She  had  had  more  than  evidence  enough  to  satisfy  her. 
Her  first  reaction  to  it  was  a  primitive  lust  for  revenge. 

Once  or  twice  she  blazed  with  such  anger  that  she  rose 
to  tear  the  wire  loose  from  the  wall  and  end  the  torment. 
But  her  curiosity  restrained  her.  She  set  the  earpiece 
to  her  ear  again. 

283 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

At  length  she  formed  her  resolution  to  act.  She  called 
out,  "Mr.  Hodshon,  come  here!*' 

He  came  in  and  found  her  a  pillar  of  rage. 

"I've  heard  enough.  I'll  do  what  I  refused  before. 
I'll  go  with  you  and  break  in." 

Hodshon  was  dazed.  He  was  not  ready  to  act.  She 
had  refused  his  plan  to  break  in  according  to  the  classic 
standards.  He  had  let  the  plan  lapse  and  accepted  Mrs. 
Cheever  as  a  poor  rich  wretch  whom  he  had  contracted 
to  provide  with  a  certain  form  of  morbid  entertainment. 
He  could  do  nothing  now  but  stammer: 

"Well — well — is  that  so?  Do  you  really?  You  know 
you  didn't —  O'  course —  Well,  let's  see  now.  You  know 
we  ain't  prepared.  I  told  you  we  had  to  have  a  c'rob'rat- 
ing  witness.  It  wouldn't  be  legal  if  we  were  to —  Still, 
they  probably  would  accept  you  as  witness  and  us  as 
corroboration,  but  you  wouldn't  want  to  go  on  the  stand 
and  tell  what  you  found — not  a  nice  refined  lady  like 
you  are.  The  witness-stand  is  no  place  for  a  lady, 
anyway. 

"The  thing  is  if  you  could  get  some  gentleman  friend 
to  go  with  you  and  you  two  break  in.  Then  you'd  both 
be  amateurs,  kind  of.  You  see?  Do  you  know  any 
gentleman  who  might  be  willing  to  do  that  for  you? 
The  best  of  friends  get  very  shy  when  you  suggest  such 
a  job.  But  if  you  know  anybody  who  would  be  interested 
and  wanted  to  help  you —  Do  you?" 

Only  two  names  came  to  Charity's  searching  mind — 
Jim  Dyckman's  impossible  name  and  one  that  was  so 
sublimely  unfit  that  she  laughed  as  she  uttered  it. 

"There's  the  Reverend  Doctor  Mosely." 

Hodshon  tried  to  laugh. 

"I  was  reading  head-lines  of  a  sermon  of  his.  He's 
down  on  divorce." 

"That's  why  he'd  be  the  ideal  witness,"  said  Charity. 

"But  would  he  come?" 

"Of  course  not,"  she  laughed.  "There's  no  use  of 
284 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

carrying  this  further.     I've  had  all  I  can  stand  to-night. 
Let  me  go." 

As  usual  with  people  who  have  had  all  they  can  stand, 
Charity  wanted  some  more.  She  glanced  at  the  receiver, 
curious  as  to  what  winged  words  had  flown  unattended 
during  her  parley  with  Hodshon. 

She  put  the  receiver  to  her  ear  and  fell  back.  Again 
she  was  greeted  with  clamor.  They  were  quarreling 
ferociously. 

That  might  mean  either  of  two  things:  there  are  the 
quarrels  that  enemies  maintain,  and  those  that  devoted 
lovers  wage.  The  latter  sort  are  perhaps  the  bitterer, 
the  less  polite.  Charity  could  not  learn  what  had  started 
the  wrangle  between  those  two. 

Slowly  it  died  away.  Zada's  cries  turned  to  sobs,  and 
her  tirade  to  sobs. 

"You  don't  love  me.  Go  back  to  her.  You  love  her 
still." 

"No,  I  don't,  honey.  I  just  don't  want  her  name 
brought  into  our  conversation.  It  doesn't  seem  decent, 
somehow.  It's  like  bringing  her  in  here  to  listen  to  our 
quarrels.  I'm  sorry  I  hurt  you.  I'm  trying  not  to, 
but  you're  so  peculiarly  hard  to  keep  peace  with  lately. 
What's  the  reason,  darling?" 

Charity  was  smitten  with  a  fear  more  terrible  than  any 
yet.  She  heard  its  confirmation.  Zada  whispered: 

"Can't  you  guess?" 

"No,  I  can't." 

"Stupid!"  Zada  murmured.     "You  poor,  stupid  boy." 

Charity  heard  nothing  for  a  long  moment — then  a  gasp. 

"Zada!" 

She  greeted  his  alarm  with  a  chuckle  and  a  flurry  of 
proud  laughter.  He  bombarded  her  with  questions: 

"Why  didn't  you  tell  me?  How  long?  What  will  you 
do?  How  could  you? — you're  no  fool." 

Her  answers  were  jumbled  with  his  questions — his 
voice  terrified,  hers  victorious. 

285 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"I've  kept  it  a  secret  for  months,  because  I  was  afraid 
of  you.  It's  my  right.  It's  too  late  to  do  anything  now. 
And  now  we'll  see  whether  you  love  me  or  not — and  how 
much,  if  any." 

There  was  again  silence.  Charity  could  hardly  tolerate 
the  suspense.  Both  she  and  Zada  were  hanging  breath- 
lessly on  Cheever's  answer. 

He  did  not  speak  for  so  long  that  Zada  gave  up.  "You 
don't  love  me,  then?  I'd  better  kill  myself,  I  suppose. 
It's  the  only  solution  now.  And  I'm  willing,  since  you 
don't  love  me  enough." 

"No,  no — yes,  I  do.  I  adore  you — more  than  ever. 
But  it's  such  a  strange  ambition  for  you ;  and,  God !  what 
a  difference  it  makes,  what  a  difference!" 

That  was  what  Charity  thought.  For  once  she  agreed 
with  Cheever,  echoed  his  words  and  his  dismay  and  stood 
equally  stunned  before  the  new  riddle.  It  was  a  perfect 
riddle  now,  for  there  was  no  end  to  the  answers,  and  every 
one  of  them  was  wrong. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

HARITY  let  the  receiver  fall.  She  had  had  enough. 
She  sank  into  a  chair  and  would  have  slipped  to  the 
floor,  but  her  swimming  eyes  made  out  the  blurred  face 
of  Hodshon,  terrified  at  her  pallor. 

If  she  fainted  he  would  resuscitate  her.  She  could  not 
add  that  to  her  other  ignominies.  She  clenched  herself 
like  one  great  fist  of  resolution  till  the  swoon  was  frus- 
trated. She  sat  still  for  a  while — then  rose,  put  on  her 
hat,  swathed  her  face  in  the  veil,  and  went  down  the 
flights  of  stairs  and  out  into  the  cool,  dark  street. 

She  had  forgotten  that  she  had  dismissed  the  taxicab. 
Fortunately  another  was  lurking  in  the  lee  of  the  apart- 
ment-house. Hodshon  summoned  it  and  would  have 
ridden  home  with  her,  but  she  forbade  him.  She  passed 
on  the  way  the  church  of  Doctor  Mosely  and  his  house 
adjoining.  She  was  tempted  to  stop,  but  she  was  too 
weary  for  more  talk. 

She  slept  exceedingly  well  that  night,  so  well  that  when 
she  woke  she  regretted  that  she  had  not  slept  on  out  of 
the  world.  She  fell  asleep  again,  but  was  trampled  by 
a  nightmare.  She  woke  trying  to  scream.  Her  eyes, 
opening,  found  her  beautiful  room  about  her  and  the  dream 
dangers  vanished. 

But  the  horrors  of  her  waking  hours  of  yesterday  had 
not  vanished.  They  were  waiting  for  her.  She  could 
not  end  them  by  the  closing  of  her  eyes.  In  the  cool, 
clear  light  of  day  she  saw  still  more  problems  than  before 
— problems  crying  for  decisions  and  contradicting  each 
other  with  a  hopeless  conflict  of  moralities.  To  move 

287 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

in  any  direction  was  to  commit  ugly  deeds ;  to  move  in  no 
direction  was  to  commit  the  ugliest  of  all. 

She  rang  for  her  coffee,  and  she  could  hardly  sit  up  to 
it.  Her  maid  cried  out  at  her  age-worn  look,  and  begged 
her  to  see  a  doctor. 

"I'm  going  to  as  soon  as  I'm  strong  enough,"  said  Char- 
ity Coe.  But  she  meant  the  Reverend  Doctor  Mosely. 
She  thought  that  she  could  persuade  even  him  that  surgery 
was  necessary  upon  that  marriage.  At  any  rate,  she 
determined  to  force  a  decision  from  him.  She  telephoned 
the  unsuspecting  old  darling,  and  he  readily  consented  to 
see  her.  She  spent  an  hour  or  two  going  over  her  Bible 
and  concordance.  They  gave  her  little  comfort  in  her 
plight. 

When  finally  she  dragged  herself  from  her  home  to 
Doctor  Mosely's  his  butler  ushered  her  at  once  into  the 
study.  Doctor  Mosely  welcomed  her  both  as  a  grown-up 
child  and  as  an  eminent  dealer  in  good  deeds. 

She  went  right  at  her  business.  "Doctor  Mosely,  I 
loathe  myself  for  adding  to  the  burdens  your  parish  puts 
upon  your  dear  shoulders  but  you're  responsible  for  my 
present  dilemma." 

"My  dear  child,  you  don't  tell  me!  Then  you  must 
let  me  help  you  out  of  it.  But  first  tell  me — what  I'm 
responsible  f*r." 

"You  married  me  to  Peter  Cheever." 

"Why,  yes,  I  believe  I  did.  I  marry  so  many  dear  girls. 
Yes,  I  remember  your  wedding  perfectly.  A  very  pretty 
occasion,  and  you  looked  extremely  well.  So  did  the 
bridegroom.  I  was  quite  proud  of  joining  two  such — 
such — " 

"Please  unjoin  us." 

"Great  Heavens,  my  child!    What  are  you  saying?" 

"I  am  asking  you  to  untie  the  knot  you  tied." 

The  old  man  stared  at  her,  took  his  glasses  off,  rubbed 
them,  put  them  on,  and  peered  into  her  face  to  make  sure 
of  her.  Then  he  said : 

288 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"If  that  were  in  my  power — and  you  know  perfectly 
well  that  it  is  not — it  would  be  a  violation  of  all  that  I 
hold  sacred  in  matrimony." 

"Just  what  do  you  hold  sacred,  Doctor  Mosely?" 

"  Dear,  dear,  this  will  never  do.  Really,  I  don't  wish 
to  take  advantage  of  my  cloth,  but,  really,  you  know, 
Charity,  you  have  been  taught  better  than  to  snap  at 
the  clergy  like  that." 

"Forgive  me;  I'm  excited,  not  irreverent.  But — well, 
you  don't  believe  in  divorce,  do  you?" 

"I  have  stated  so  with  all  the  power  of  my  poor  elo- 
quence." 

"  Do  you  believe  that  the  seventh  commandment  is  the 
least  important  of  the  lot?" 

"Certainly  not!" 

"If  a  man  breaks  any  commandment  he  ought  to  do 
what  he  can  to  remedy  the  evil?" 

"Yes." 

"Then  if  a  man  violates  the  seventh,  why  shouldn't 
he  be  compelled  to  make  restitution,  too?" 

"What  restitution  could  he  make?" 

"Not  much.  He  has  taken  from  the  girl  he  marries 
her  name,  her  innocence,  her  youth — he  can  restore  only 
one  thing — her  freedom." 

"That  is  not  for  him  to  restore.  'What,  therefore, 
God  hath  joined,  let  not  man  put  asunder.' " 

The  old  man  grew  majestic  when  he  thundered  the 
sonorities  of  Holy  Writ.  Charity  was  cowed,  but  she 
made  a  craven  protest : 

"But  who  is  to  say  what  God  hath  joined?" 

"The  marriage  sacraments  administered  by  the  or- 
dained clergy  established  that.  There  is  every  warrant 
for  clergymen  to  perform  marriages;  no  Christian  clergy- 
man pretends  to  undo  them." 

"You  believe  that  marriage  is  an  indissoluble  sacra- 
ment, then?" 

"Indeed  I  do." 
19  289 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Who  made  my  marriage  a  sacrament?" 

"I  did,  as  the  agent  of  God." 

"And  the  minute  you  pronounce  a  couple  married 
they  are  registered  in  heaven,  and  God  completes  the 
union?" 

"You  may  put  it  as  you  please;  the  truth  is  divine." 

"In  other  words,  a  man  like  you  can  pronounce  two 
people  man  and  wife,  but  once  the  words  have  escaped 
his  lips  nothing  can  ever  correct  the  mistake." 

"There  are  certain  conditions  which  annul  a  marriage, 
but  once  it  is  genuinely  ratified  on  earth  it  is  ratified  in 
heaven." 

"In  heaven,  where,  as  the  New  Testament  says  in 
several  places,  married  people  do  not  live  together? 
The  woman  who  had  seven  husbands  on  earth,  you  know, 
didn't  have  any  at  all  in  heaven." 

"So  Christ  answered  the  Sadducee  who  tempted  him 
with  questions." 

"Marriage  is  strictly  a  matter  of  the  earth,  earthy, 
then?" 

"Nothing  is  strictly  that,  my  child.  But  what  in  the 
name  of  either  earth  or  heaven  has  led  you  to  come  over 
here  and  break  into  my  morning's  work  with  such  a 
fusillade  of  childish  questions?  You  know  a  child  can 
ask  questions  that  a  wise  man  cannot  answer.  Also,  a 
child  can  ask  questions  which  a  wise  man  can  answer  to 
another  wise  man  but  not  to  a  child.  You  talk  like  an 
excited,  an  unreasoning  girl.  I  am  surprised  to  hear  you 
ridiculing  the  institution  of  Christian  marriage,  but  your 
ridicule  does  not  prove  it  to  be  ridiculous." 

"Oh,  it's  not  ridiculous  to  me,  Doctor  Mosely;  and 
I'm  not.  ridiculing  it.  I  am  horribly  afraid  of  what  it  has 
done  to  me  and  will  do  to  me." 

"Explain  that,  my  dear." 

She  did  explain  with  all  bluntness :  "  My  husband  openly 
lives  with  a  mistress.  He  prefers  her  to  me." 

The  old  man  was  stunned.  He  faltered:  "Dear  me! 
290 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

That  is  most  reprehensible — most!    He  should  be  sub- 
jected to  discipline." 

"Whose?  He  isn't  a  member  of  your  church.  And 
how  can  you  discipline  such  a  man — especially  as  you  don't 
believe  in  divorce?" 

"Have  you  tried  to  win  him  back  to  the  path  of  duty, 
to  waken  him  to  a  realizing  sense  of  his  obliquity?" 

"Often  and  long.  It  can't  be  done,  for  he  loves  the 
other  woman." 

"  Don't  use  the  beautiful  word  love  for  such  a  debasing 
impulse." 

"But  I  know  he  loves  her!" 

"How  could  you  know?" 

"  I  heard  him  tell  her." 

"You  heard  him!  Do  you  ask  me  to  believe  that  he 
told  her  that  in  your  presence?" 

"I  heard  him  on  the  dictagraph." 

"You  have  been  collecting  evidence  for  divorce,  then?" 

' '  No,  I  was  collecting  it  to  assure  myself  that  the  gossip 
I  had  heard  was  false — and  to  submit  to  you." 

"But  why  tome?" 

"When  I  first  learned  of  this  hideous  situation  my 
first  impulse  was  to  rush  to  the  courts.  I  went  to  church 
instead.  I  heard  your  sermon.  It  stopped  me  from  see- 
ing a  lawyer." 

"I  am  glad  my  poor  words  have  served  some  useful 
end." 

"But  have  they?" 

"If  I  have  prevented  one  divorce  I  have  not  lived  in 
vain." 

"You  don't  think  I  have  a  right  to  ask  for  one?" 

"Absolutely  and  most  emphatically  not." 

"  In  spite  of  anything  he  may  do?" 

"Anything!  He  will  come  back  to  you,  Charity. 
Possess  your  soul  in  patience.  It  may  be  years,  but  keep 
the  light  burning  and  he  will  return." 

"In  what  condition?" 

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WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"My  child,  you  shock  me!  You've  been  reading  the 
horrible  literature  that  gets  printed  under  the  guise  of 
science." 

"I  must  wait,  then?" 

"Yes.  If  you  wish  to  separate  from  him  for  a  time, 
your  absence  might  waken  him  to  a  realizing  sense.  There 
are  no  children,  I  believe." 

"None,  yet." 

"Yet?    Oh,  then—" 

"If  there  were,  would  it  make  a  difference?" 

"Of  course!  an  infinite  difference!" 

"You  think  a  man  and  woman  ought  to  let  their  child 
keep  them  together  in  any  event?" 

"Need  I  say  it?  What  greater  bond  of  union  could 
there  be?  Is  it  not  God's  own  seal  and  blessing  on  the 
wedlock,  rendering  it,  so  to  speak,  even  more  indissoluble? 
You  blush,  my  child.  Is  it  true,  then,  that — " 

"A  child  is  expected." 

"Ah,  my  dear  girl!  How  that  proves  what  I  have 
maintained!  The  birth  of  the  little  one  will  bring  the 
errant  father  to  his  senses.  The  tiny  hands  will  unite 
its  parents  as  if  they  were  the  hands  of  a  priest  drawing 
them  together.  That  child  is  the  divine  messenger  con- 
firming the  sacrament." 

"You  believe  that?" 

"  Utterly.  Oh,  I  am  glad.  Motherhood  is  the  crowning 
triumph;  it  hallows  any  woman  howsoever  lowly  or 
wicked.  And  you  are  neither,  Charity.  I  know  you  to 
be  good  and  busy  in  good  works.  But  were  you  never  so 
evil,  this  heavenly  privilege  would  make  of  you  a  very 
vessel  of  sanctity." 

Charity  turned  pale  as  she  sprung  the  trap.  "The 
child  is  expected — not  by  me,  but  by  the  other  woman." 

Doctor  Mosely's  beatitude  turned  to  a  sick  disgust. 
Red  and  white  streaked  his  face.  His  first  definite  reac- 
tion was  wrath  at  the  trick  that  had  been  played  upon 
him. 

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WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Mrs.  Cheever!  This  is  unworthy  of  you!  You  dis- 
tress me!  Really!" 

"I  was  a  little  distressed  myself.     What  am  I  to  do?" 

"I  will  not  believe  what  you  say." 

"I  heard  her  confess  it — boast  of  it.  She  agrees  with 
you  that  the  tiny  hands  will  bring  her  and  the  father  to- 
gether and  confirm  the  sacrament." 

"It  can't  be.     It  must  not  be!" 

"You  don't  advocate  that  form  of  birth-control? 
They  are  arresting  people  who  preach  prevention  of 
conception.  You  are  not  so  modern  as  that." 

"Hush!" 

"What  am  I  to  do?  You  advise  me  to  possess  my  soul 
in  patience  for  years.  But  the  child  won't  wait  that  long. 
Doesn't  the  situation  alter  your  opinion  of  divorce?" 

"No!" 

"But  if  I  don't  divorce  Mr.  Cheever  and  let  him  marry 
her  the  child  will  have  no  father — legally." 

"The  responsibility  is  his,  not  yours." 

"You  don't  believe  in  infant  damnation,  do  you?  At 
least  not  on  earth,  do  you?" 

"I  cannot  control  the  evil  impulses  of  others.  The 
doctrines  of  the  Church  cannot  be  modified  for  the  con- 
venience of  every  sinner." 

"You  advise  against  divorce,  then?" 

"  I  am  unalterably  opposed  to  it." 

"What  is  your  solution,  then,  of  this  situation?" 

"I  shall  have  to  think  it  over — and  pray.  Please  go. 
You  have  staggered  me." 

"When  you  have  thought  it  over  will  you  give  me  the 
help  of  your  advice?" 

"Certainly." 

"Then  shall  I  wait  till  I  hear  from  you?" 

"  If  you  will." 

"Good-by,  Doctor  Mosely." 

"Good-by,  Mrs. — Charity — my  child!" 

He  pressed  her  long  hand  in  his  old  palms.  He  was 

293 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

trembling.  He  was  like  a  priest  at  bay  before  the  altar 
while  the  arrows  of  the  infidel  rain  upon  him.  These 
arrows  were  soft  as  rain  and  keen  as  silk.  He  was  more 
afraid  of  them  than  if  they  had  been  tipped  with  flint  or 
steel. 

Charity  left  the  parsonage  no  wiser  than  she  entered  it. 
She  had  accomplished  nothing  further  than  to  ruin  Doctor 
Mosely's  excellent  start  on  an  optimistic  discourse  in  the 
prevailing  fashion  of  the  enormously  popular  "  Pollyanna" 
stories:  it  was  to  be  a  "glad"  sermon,  an  inexorably 
glad  sermon.  But  poor  Doctor  Mosely  could  not  preach 
it  now  in  the  face  of  this  ugly  fact. 

Charity  went  home  with  her  miserable  triumph,  which 
only  emphasized  her  defeat. 

She  found  at  home  a  mass  of  details  pressing  for  im- 
mediate action  if  the  big  moving-picture  project  were  not 
to  lapse  into  inanity.  The  mere  toil  of  such  a  task  ought 
to  have  been  welcomed,  at  least  as  a  diversion.  But  her 
heart  was  as  if  dead  in  her. 

She  wondered  how  Jim  Dyckman  was  progressing  with 
his  portion  of  the  task.  He  had  not  reported  to  her.  She 
wondered  why. 

She  decided  to  telephone  him.  She  put  out  her  hand, 
but  did  not  lift  the  receiver  from  the  hook.  She  began 
to  muse  upon  Jim  Dyckman.  She  began  to  think  strange 
thoughts  of  him.  If  she  had  married  him  she  might  not 
have  failed  so  wretchedly  to  find  happiness.  Of  course, 
she  might  have  failed  more  wretchedly  and  more  speedily, 
but  the  wayfarer  who  chooses  one  of  two  crossroads  and 
meets  a  wolf  upon  it  does  not  believe  that  a  lion  was  wait- 
ing on  the  other. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

CHARITY  pondered  her  whole  history  with  Jim  Dyck- 
man,  from  their  childhood  flirtations  on.    He  had 
had  other  flings,  and  she  had  flung  herself  into  Peter 
Cheever's  arms.     Peter  Cheever  had  flung  her  out  again. 
Jim  Dyckman  had  opened  his  arms  again. 

He  had  told  her  that  she  was  wasting  herself.  He  had 
offered  her  love  and  devotion.  She  had  struck  his  hands 
away  and  rebuked  him  fiercely.  A  little  later  she  had  felt  a 
pang  of  jealousy  because  he  looked  at  that  little  Greek 
dancer  so  interestedly.  She  had  tried  to  atone  for  this 
appalling  thought  by  interesting  herself  in  the  little 
dancer's  welfare  and  hunting  a  position  for  her  with  the 
moving-picture  company.  She  had  told  Jim  Dyckman 
to  look  for  the  girl  in  the  studio  and  find  how  she  was 
getting  along.  He  had  never  reported  on  that,  either. 
Charity  smiled  bitterly. 

Last  night  it  had  come  over  her  that  her  love  for  Peter 
Cheever  was  dead.  Was  love  itself,  then,  dead  for  her? 
or  was  her  heart  already  busy  down  there  in  the  dark  of 
her  bosom,  busy  like  a  seed  germinating  some  new  lily 
or  fennel  to  thrust  up  into  the  daylight? 

The  sublime  and  the  ridiculous  are  as  close  together  as 
the  opposite  sides  of  a  sheet  of  cloth.  The  sublime  is  the 
obverse  of  the  tapestry  with  the  figures  heroic,  saintly  or 
sensuous,  in  battle  or  temple  or  bower,  in  conquest,  love, 
martyrdom,  adoration.  The  reverse  of  the  tapestry  is  a 
matter  of  knots  and  tufts,  broken  patterns,  ludicrous 
accidents  of  contour.  The  same  threads  make  up  both 
sides. 

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WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

On  one  side  of  Charity's  tapestry  she  saw  herself  as  a 
pitiful  figure,  a  neglected  wife  returned  from  errands  of 
mercy  to  find  her  husband  enamoured  of  a  wanton.  She 
spurned  the  proffered  heart  of  a  great  knight  while  her 
own  heart  bled  openly  in  her  breast. 

On  the  other  side  she  saw  the  same  red  threads  that 
crimsoned  her  heart  running  across  the  arras  to  and  from 
the  heart  of  Jim  Dyckman.  It  was  the  red  thread  of  life 
and  love,  blood-color — blood-maker,  blood-spiller,  heart- 
quickener,  heart-sickener,  the  red  thread  of  romance,  of 
motherhood  and  of  lust,  birth  and  murder,  family  and 
bawdry. 

In  the  tapestry  her  heart  was  entire,  her  eyes  upon  her 
faithless  husband.  On  the  other  side  her  eyes  faced  the 
other  knight;  her  heartstrings  ran  out  to  his.  She 
laughed  harshly  at  the  vision.  Her  laugh  ended  in  a 
fierce  contempt  of  herself  and  of  every  body  and  thing 
else  in  the  world. 

She  was  too  weak  to  fight  the  law  and  the  Church  and 
the  public  in  order  to  divorce  her  husband.  Would  it  be 
weakness  or  strength  to  sit  at  home  in  the  ashes  and 
deny  herself  to  life  and  love?  She  could  always  go  to 
Jim  Dyckman  and  take  him  as  her  cavalier.  But  then 
she  would  become  one  of  those  heartbroken,  leash -broken 
women  who  are  the  Maenads  of  society,  more  or  less  cir- 
cumspect and  shy,  but  none  the  less  lawless.  But 
wherein  were  they  better  than  the  Zadas? 

Charity  was  wrung  with  a  nausea  of  love  in  all  its 
activities;  she  forswore  them.  Yet  she  was  human. 
She  was  begotten  and  conceived  in  the  flesh  of  lovers. 
She  was  made  for  love  and  its  immemorial  usages.  How 
could  she  expect  to  destroy  her  own  primeval  impulse 
just  because  one  treacherous  man  had  enjoyed  her  awhile 
and  passed  on  to  his  next  affair? 

There  was  no  child  of  hers  to  grow  up  and  replace  her 
in  the  eternal  armies  of  love  and  compel  her  aside  among 
the  veteran  women  who  have  been  mustered  out.  She 

296 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

was  in  a  sense  already  widowed  of  her  husband.  Cer- 
tainly she  would  never  love  Cheever  again  or  receive  him 
into  her  arms.  He  belonged  to  the  mother  of  his  child. 
Let  that  woman  step  aside  into  the  benches  of  the  spec- 
tators, those  who  have  served  their  purpose  and  must 
become  wet-nurses,  child-dryers,  infant-teachers,  peram- 
bulator-motors, question-answerers,  nose-blowers,  mis- 
chief-punishers,  cradleside-bards. 

Charity  laughed  derisively  at  the  vision  of  Zada  as  a 
mother.  The  Madonna  pose  had  fascinated  this  Mag- 
dalen, but  she  would  find  that  mothers  have  many,  many 
other  things  to  do  for  their  infants  than  to  sit  for  portraits 
and  give  them  picturesque  nourishment — many,  many 
other  things.  If  Zada's  child  inherited  its  father's  and 
mother's  wantonness,  laziness,  wickedness,  and  violence 
of  temper,  there  was  going  to  be  a  lively  nursery  in  that 
apartment. 

Zada  had  so  wanted  a  baby  as  a  reward  of  love  that  she 
was  willing  to  snatch  it  out  of  the  vast  waiting-room  with- 
out pausing  for  a  license.  She  would  find  that  she  had 
bought  punishment  at  a  high  price.  The  poor  baby  was 
in  for  a  hard  life,  but  it  would  give  its  parents  one  in 
exchange. 

Charity  was  appalled  at  this  unknown  harshness  of  her 
soul;  it  sneered  at  all  things  once  held  beautiful  and 
sacred.  Her  soul  was  like  a  big  cathedral  broken  into 
by  a  pagan  mob  that  ran  about  smashing  images,  defil- 
ing fonts,  burlesquing  all  the  solemn  rituals.  Her  quiet 
mind  was  full  of  sunburnt  nymphs  and  goatish  fauns 
with  shaggy  fetlocks.  She  saw  the  world  as  a  Brocken 
and  all  the  Sabbath  there  was  was  a  Sabbath  orgy  of 
despicably  brutish  fiends. 

She  tried  to  run  away.  She  went  to  her  piano;  her 
fingers  would  play  no  dirges;  they  grew  flippant,  profane 
in  rhythm.  She  could  think  of  no  tunes  but  dances — 
andantes  turned  scherzi,  the  Handelian  largo  became  a 
Castilian  tango.  She  found  herself  playing  a  something 

297 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

strange — she  realized  that  it  was  a  lullaby!  She  fled 
from  the  piano. 

She  went  to  her  books  for  nepenthe.  There  were  ro- 
mances in  French,  Italian,  German,  English,  and  Amer- 
ican, new  books,  old  books,  all  repeating  the  same  stencils 
of  passion  in  different  colors.  She  could  have  spat  at  them 
and  their  silly  ardors  over  the  same  old  banality:  I  love 
him ;  he  loves  me — beatitude !  I  love  him;  he  loves  her — 
tragedy ! 

The  novelists  were  like  stupid  children  parroting  the 
ancient  monotony — amo,  amas,  amat;  amamtis,  amatis, 
amant;  amo,  amas,  amat — away  with  such  primer  stuff! 
She  had  learned  the  grammar  of  love  and  was  graduated 
from  the  school-books.  She  was  a  postgraduate  of  love 
and  wedlock.  She  had  had  enough  of  them — too  much; 
she  would  read  no  more  of  love,  dwell  no  more  upon  it; 
she  would  forget  it. 

She  wanted  some  antiseptic  book,  something  frigid, 
intellectual,  ascetic.  At  last  she  thought  she  had  it. 
On  her  shelf  she  found  an  uncut  volume,  a  present  from 
some  one  who  had  never  read  it,  but  had  bought  it  be- 
cause it  cost  several  dollars  and  would  serve  as  a  gift. 

It  was  Gardner's  biography  of  Saint  Catherine  of 
Siena,  "a  study  in  the  religion,  literature,  and  history  of 
the  fourteenth  century  of  Italy."  That  sounded  heart- 
less enough.  The  frontispiece  portrait  of  the  wan,  meager, 
despondent  saint  promised  freedom  from  romantic  balder- 
dash. 

Charity  found  a  chair  by  a  window  and  began  to  read. 
The  preface  announced  the  book  to  be  "history  centered 
in  the  work  and  personality  of  one  of  the  most  wonderful 
women  that  ever  lived."  This  was  the  medicine  Charity 
wanted — the  story  of  a  woman  who  had  been  wonderful 
without  love  or  marriage. 

There  followed  a  description  of  the  evil  times  and  the 
wicked  town  in  which  Caterina  Benincasa  was  born — as 
long  ago  as  1347.  A  pestilence  swept  away  four-fifths 

298 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

of  the  populace.  One  man  told  how  he  had  buried  five 
of  his  sons  in  one  trench.  People  said  that  the  end  of  the 
world  had  come. 

The  word  trench,  the  perishing  of  the  people  and  the  ap- 
parent end  of  the  world,  gave  the  story  a  modern  sound. 
It  might  concern  the  murderous  years  of  1914-16. 

Catherine  was  religious,  as  little  girls  are  apt  to  be. 
She  even  wanted  to  enter  a  monastery  in  the  disguise  of  a 
boy.  Later  her  sister  persuaded  her  to  dye  her  hair  and 
dress  fashionably.  Charity  began  to  fear  for  her  saint, 
but  was  reassured  to  find  that  already  at  sixteen  she  was 
a  nun  and  had  commenced  that  "life  of  almost  incredible 
austerity,"  freeing  herself  from  all  dependence  on  food 
and  sleep  and  resting  on  a  bare  board. 

Charity  read  with  envy  how  Catherine  had  devoted 
herself  for  three  whole  years  to  silence  broken  only  by 
confessions.  How  good  it  would  be  not  to  talk  to  any- 
body about  anything  for  years  and  years!  How  blissful 
to  live  a  calm,  gray  life  in  a  strait  cell,  doing  no  labor  but 
the  errands  of  mercy  and  of  prayer! 

Charity  read  on,  wondering  a  little  at  Catherine's  idea 
of  God,  and  her  morbid  devotion  to  His  blood  as  the 
essence  of  everything  beautiful  and  holy.  Charity  could 
not  put  herself  back  into  that  Middle  Age  when  the  most 
concrete  materialism  was  mingled  inextricably  with  the 
most  fantastic  symbolism. 

Suddenly  she  was  startled  to  find  that  appalling  tempta- 
tions found  even  Catherine  out  even  in  her  cloistral  soli- 
tude. It  frightened  Charity  to  read  such  a  passage  as  this : 

There  came  a  time,  towards  the  end  of  these  three  years, 
when  these  assaults  and  temptations  became  horrible  and  un- 
bearable. Aerial  men  and  women,  with  obscene  words  and  still 
more  obscene  gestures,  seemed  to  invade  her  little  cell,  sweeping 
round  her  like  the  souls  of  the  damned  in  Dante's  "Hell," 
inviting  her  simple  and  chaste  soul  to  the  banquet  of  lust. 
Their  suggestions  grew  so  hideous  and  persistent  that  she 
fled  in  terror  from  the  cell  that  had  become  like  a  circle  of  the 
infernal  regions,  and  took  refuge  in  the  church;  but  they  pur- 

299 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

sued  her  thither,  though  there  their  power  seemed  checked. 
And  her  Christ  seemed  far  from  her.  At  last  she  cried  out, 
remembering  the  words  in  the  vision:  "I  have  chosen  suffering 
for  my  consolation,  and  will  gladly  bear  these  and  all  other  tor- 
ments, in  the  name  of  the  Saviour,  for  as  long  as  shall  please 
His  Majesty."  When  she  said  this,  immediately  all  that 
assemblage  of  demons  departed  in  confusion,  and  a  great  light 
from  above  appeared  that  illumined  all  the  room,  and  in  the 
light  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  Himself,  nailed  to  the  Cross  and 
stained  with  blood,  as  He  was  when  by  His  own  blood  He 
entered  into  the  holy  place;  and  from  the  Cross  He  called  the 
holy  virgin,  saying:  "My  daughter  Catherine,  seest  thou 
how  much  I  have  suffered  for  thee?  Let  it  not  then  be  hard  to 
thee  to  endure  for  Me." 

This  terrified  Charity,  and  the  further  she  read  the  less 
comfort  she  gained.  Her  matter-of-fact  Manhattan  mind 
could  vaguely  understand  Saint  Catherine's  mystic  nup- 
tials with  Christ ;  but  that  definite  gold  ring  He  placed  on 
her  finger,  that  diamond  with  four  pearls  around  it,  frus- 
trated her  comprehension. 

When  she  read  on  and  learned  how  Catherine's  utter 
self-denial  offended  the  other  churchmen  and  church- 
women;  how  her  confessions  of  sinful  thought  brought 
accusations  of  sinful  deed;  how  the  friars  actually  threw 
her  out  of  a  church  at  noon  and  kicked  her  as  she  lay 
senseless  in  the  dust;  how  she  was  threatened  with  as- 
sassination and  was  turned  from  the  doors  of  the  people; 
and  in  what  torment  she  died — from  these  strange  events 
in  the  progress  of  a  strange  soul  through  a  strange  world 
Charity  found  no  parallel  to  guide  her  life  along. 

For  hours  she  read;  but  all  that  remained  to  her  was 
the  vision  of  that  poor  woman  who  could  find  no  refuge 
from  her  flesh  and  from  the  demons  that  played  evil 
rhapsodies  upon  the  harp-strings  of  her  nerves. 

Charity  closed  the  book  and  understood  fear.  She  was 
now  not  so  much  sick  of  love  as  afraid  of  it.  She  was 
afraid  of  solitude,  afraid  of  religion  and  of  the  good 
works  that  cause  ridicule  or  resentment. 

Darkness  gathered  about  her  with  the  closing  of  the 
300 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

day.  She  dreaded  the  night  and  the  day,  people  and  the 
absence  of  people.  She  knew  no  woman  she  could  take 
her  anguish  to  for  sympathy;  it  would  provoke  only  re- 
buke or  laughter.  The  Church  had  rebuffed  her.  There 
remained  only  men,  and  what  could  she  hope  from  them? 
Even  Jim  Dyckman  had  not  been  a  friend  merely.  He 
had  told  her  that  she  wasted  herself  as  well  as  him. 

Beyond  this  night  there  were  years  of  nights,  years  on 
years  of  days.  She  could  not  even  be  alone;  for  who  was 
ever  actually  alone?  Even  in  the  hush  and  the  gloom  of 
the  deepening  twilight  there  were  figures  here,  shadows 
that  sighed,  delicate  insinuators.  There  were  no  satyrs 
or  bassarids,  but  gentlemen  in  polo  garb,  in  evening  dress, 
in  yachting  flannels.  There  were  moon-nights  in  Florida, 
electric  floods  on  dancing-floors,  this  dim  corner  of  this 
room  with  some  one  leaning  on  her  chair,  bending  his 
head  and  whispering: 

"Charity,  it's  Jim.     I  love  you." 

She  rose  and  thrust  aside  the  arms  that  were  not  there. 
She  could  not  order  him  away,  because  he  was  not  there. 
And  yet  he  was  there. 

She  was  afraid  that  he  still  loved  her  and  afraid  that 
he  did  not.  She  was  afraid  that  she  had  always  loved  him 
and  that  she  never  could.  She  was  afraid  that  she  would 
go  to  him  or  send  for  him,  and  afraid  that  she  would  be 
afraid  to.  She  thrust  away  the  phantom,  but  her  palms 
pleaded  against  his  departure.  Softer  than  a  whisper  and 
noisier  than  a  cry  was  her  thought : 

"I  don't  want  to  be  alone.     I  am  afraid  to  be  alone." 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

KEDZIE  wanted  to  be  a  lady,  and  with   the  ladies 
stand — a  tall  tiara  in  her  hair,  a  lorgnette  in  her 
hand. 

She  had  succeeded  dizzily,  tremendously,  in  her  cinema 
career.  The  timid  thing  that  had  watched  the  moving- 
picture  director  to  see  how  he  held  his  wineglass,  and 
accepted  his  smile  as  a  beam  of  sunshine  breaking  through 
the  clouds  about  his  godlike  head,  now  found  his  graceful- 
ness "actory,"  his  intimacy  impudent,  and  his  association 
compromising.  Ferriday's  very  picturesqueness  and  ar- 
tistry convinced  her  now  that  he  was  not  quite  the 
gentleman. 

Kedzie  was  beginning  to  imitate  the  upper  dialect 
already.  She  who  but  a  twelvemonth  past  was  dividing 
people  into  "hicks"  and  "swells,"  and  whose  epithets  were 
"reub"  and  "classy,"  was  now  a  generation  advanced. 

Ferriday  saw  it  and  raged.  One  day  in  discussing  the 
cast  of  a  picture  he  mentioned  the  screen-pet  Lorraine 
Melnotte  as  the  man  for  the  principal  male  r61e. 

Kedzie  sighed:  "Oh,  he  is  so  hopelessly  romantic,  never 
quite  the  gentleman.  In  costume  he  gets  by,  but  in 
evening  clothes  he  always  suggests  the  handsome  waiter — 
don't  you  think?" 

Ferriday  roared,  with  disgust:  "Good  Lord,  but  you're 
growing.  What  is  this  thing  I've  invented?  Are  you  a 
Frankenstein  f ' ' 

Kedzie  looked  blank  and  sneered,  "Are  you  implying 
that  I  have  Yiddish  blood  in  me?" 

302 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

She  wondered  why  he  laughed,  but  she  would  not  ask. 
Along  many  lines  Kedzie  did  not  know  much,  but  in 
others  she  was  uncannily  acute. 

Kedzie  was  gleaning  all  her  ideas  of  gentlemanship  from 
Jim  Dyckman.  She  knew  that  he  had  lineage  and  heritage 
and  equipage  and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  and  he  must  be 
great  because  he  knew  great  people.  His  careless  sim- 
plicity, artlessness,  shyness,  all  the  things  that  distressed 
her  at  first,  were  now  accepted  as  the  standards  of  conduct 
for  everybody. 

In  life  as  in  other  arts,  the  best  artists  grow  from  the 
complex  to  the  simple,  the  tortuous  to  the  direct,  from 
pose  to  poise,  from  tradition  to  truth,  from  artifice  to 
reality.  Kedzie  was  beginning  to  understand  this  and  to 
ape  what  she  could  not  do  naturally. 

Her  comet-like  scoot  from  obscurity  to  fame  in  the 
motion-picture  sky  had  exhausted  the  excitement  of  that 
sky,  and  now  she  was  ashamed  of  being  a  wage-earner, 
a  mere  actress,  especially  a  movie  actress. 

If  the  studio  had  not  caught  fire  and  burned  up  so 
many  thousands  of  yards  of  her  portraiture  she  would  have 
broken  her  contract  without  scruple.  But  the  shock  of 
the  loss  of  her  pretty  images  drove  her  back  to  the  scene. 
The  pity  of  so  much  thought,  emotion,  action,  going  up 
in  smoke  was  too  cruel  to  endure. 

It  was  not  necessary  for  Dyckman  to  pay  the  expenses 
of  their  repetition  in  celluloid,  as  he  offered.  The  Hyper- 
film  Company  rented  another  studio  and  began  to  remake 
the  destroyed  pictures.  They  were  speedily  renewed  be- 
cause the  scenarios  had  been  rescued  and  there  was  little 
of  that  appalling  waste  of  time,  money,  and  effort  which 
has  almost  wrecked  the  whole  industry.  They  did  not 
photograph  a  thousand  feet  for  every  two  hundred  used. 

Kedzie' s  first  pictures  had  gone  to  the  exchanges  before 
the  fire,  and  they  were  continuing  their  travels  about  the 
world  while  she  was  at  work  revamping  the  rest. 

About  this  time  the  Hyperfilm  managers  decided  to 

303 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

move  their  factory  to  California,  where  the  sempiternal 
sunlight  insured  better  photography  at  far  less  expense. 
This  meant  that  Kedzie  must  leave  New  York  only  partly 
conquered  and  must  tear  herself  away  from  Jim  Dyckman. 

She  broke  down  and  cried  when  she  told  Dyckman  of 
this,  and  for  the  first  time  his  sympathies  were  stampeded 
on  her  account.  He  petted  her,  and  she  slid  into  his 
arms  with  a  child-like  ingratiation  that  made  his  heart 
swell  with  pity. 

"What's  the  odds,"  he  said,  attempting  consolation, 
"where  you  work,  so  long  as  you  work?" 

"But  it  would  mean,"  she  sobbed — "it  would  mean 
taking  me  away-ay  from  you-ou." 

This  tribute  enraptured  Dyckman  incredibly.  That 
he  should  mean  so  much  to  so  wonderful  a  thing  as  she 
was  was  unbelievably  flattering.  He  had  dogged  Char- 
ity's heels  with  meek  and  unrewarded  loyalty  until  he  had 
lost  all  pride.  Kedzie's  tears  at  the  thought  of  leaving 
him  woke  it  to  life  again. 

"By  golly,  you  sha'n't  go,  then!"  he  cried.  "I  was 
thinking  of  coming  out  there  to  visit  you,  but — but  it 
would  be  better  yet  for  you  to  stay  right  here  in  little  old 
New  York." 

This  brought  back  Kedzie's  smile.  But  she  faltered, 
"What  if  they  hold  me  to  my  contract,  though?" 

"Then  we'll  bust  the  old  contract.  I'll  buy  "em  off. 
You  needn't  work  for  anybody." 

There  was  enough  of  the  old-fashioned  woman  of  one 
sort  left  in  Kedzie  to  relish  the  slave-block  glory  of  being, 
fought  over  by  two  purchasers.  She  spoke  rather  slyly: 

"But  I'll  be  without  wages  then.  How  would  I  live? 
I've  got  to  work." 

Dyckman  answered  at  once:  "Of  course  not.  I'll  take 
care  of  you.  I  offered  to  before,  you  know."  He  had 
made  a  proposal  of  marriage  some  time  before ;  it  was  the 
only  sort  of  proposal  that  he  had  been  tempted  to  make 
to  Kedzie.  He  liked  her  immensely;  she  fascinated  him; 

3°4 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

he  loved  to  pet  her  and  kiss  her  and  talk  baby  talk  to  her; 
but  she  had  never  inflamed  his  emotions. 

Either  it  was  the  same  with  her,  or  she  had  purposely 
controlled  herself  and  him  from  policy,  or  had  been  re- 
strained by  coldness  or  by  a  certain  decency,  of  which  she 
had  a  good  deal,  after  all  and  in  spite  of  all. 

Throughout  their  relations  they  had  deceived  Ferriday 
and  other  cynics.  For  all  their  indifference  to  appear- 
ances, they  had  behaved  like  a  well-behaved  pair  of  young 
betrothed  Americans,  with  a  complete  freedom  from 
chaperonage,  and  a  considerable  liberality  of  endearments, 
but  no  serious  misdemeanor. 

Kedzie  knew  what  he  meant,  but  she  wanted  to  hear 
him  propose  again.  So  she  murmured: 

"How  do  you  mean,  take  care  of  me?" 

"I  mean— marry  you,  of  course." 

"Oh!"  said  Kedzie.  And  in  a  whirlwind  of  pride  she 
twined  her  arms  about  his  neck  and  clung  to  him  with  a 
desperate  ardor. 

Dyckman  said:  "This  isn't  my  first  proposal,  you 
know.  You  said  you  wanted  time  to  think  it  over. 
Haven't  you  thought  it  over  yet?" 

"Yes,"  Kedzie  sighed,  but  she  said  no  more. 

"Well,  what's  the  answer?"  he  urged. 

"Yes." 

She  whispered,  torn  between  rapture  and  despair. 

Any  woman  might  have  blazed  with  pride  at  being 
asked  to  marry  Jim  Dyckman.  The  little  villager  was 
almost  consumed  like  another  Semele  scorched  by  Jupiter's 
rash  approach. 

In  Dyckman's  clasp  Kedzie  felt  how  lonely  she  had 
been.  She  wanted  to  be  gathered  in  from  the  dangers  of 
the  world,  from  poverty  and  from  work.  She  had  not 
realized  how  tiny  a  thing  she  was,  to  be  combating  the 
big  city  all  alone,  until  some  one  offered  her  shelter. 

People  can  usually  be  brave  and  grim  in  the  presence 
of  defeat  and  peril  and  hostility.  It  is  the  kind  word, 

305 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

the  sudden  victory,  the  discovery  of  a  friend  that  breaks 
one  down.     Even  Kedzie  wept. 

She  wept  all  over  Jim  Dyckman's  waistcoat,  sat  on  his 
lap  and  swallowed  throat-lumps  and  tears  and  tugged  at 
his  cuff-links  with  her  little  fingers. 

Then  she  looked  up  at  him  and  blushed  and  kissed  him 
fiercely,  hugging  him  with  all  the  might  of  her  arms. 
He  was  troubled  by  the  first  frenzy  she  had  ever  shown 
for  him,  and  he  might  have  learned  how  much  more  than  a 
merely  pretty  child  she  was  if  she  had  not  suddenly  felt 
an  icy  hand  laid  on  her  hands,  unclasping  them. 

A  cold  arm  seemed  to  bend  about  her  throat  and  drag 
her  back.  She  slid  from  Dyckman's  knees,  gasping: 

"Oh!" 

She  could  not  become  Mrs.  Jim  Dyckman,  because  she 
was  Mrs.  Thomas  Gilfoyle. 

Dyckman  was  astounded  and  frightened  by  her  action. 
He  put  his  hand  out,  but  she  unclenched  his  fingers  from 
her  wrist,  mumbling: 

"Don't— please!" 

"Why  not?    What's  wrong  with  you,  child?" 

How  could  she  tell  him?  What  could  she  do?  She 
must  do  a  lot  of  thinking.  On  one  thing  she  was  resolved : 
that  she  would  not  give  Dyckman  up.  She  would  find 
Gilfoyle  and  get  quit  of  him.  They  had  been  married  so 
easily;  there  must  be  an  easy  way  of  unmarrying. 

She  studied  Dyckman.  She  must  not  frighten  him 
away,  or  let  him  suspect.  She  laughed  nervously  and 
went  back  to  his  arms,  giggling: 

"Such  a  wonderful  thing  it  is  to  have  you  want  me  for 
your  wife!  I'm  not  worthy  of  your  name,  or  your  love, 
or  anything." 

Dyckman  could  hardly  agree  to  this,  whatever  misgiv- 
ings might  be  shaking  his  heart.  He  praised  her  with  the 
best  adjectives  in  his  scant  vocabulary  and  asked  her 
when  they  should  be  wed. 

"Oh,  not  for  a  long  while  yet,"  she  pleaded. 
306 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Why?"  he  wondered. 

"Oh,  because!"  It  sickened  and  alarmed  her  to  put 
off  the  day,  but  how  could  she  name  it? 

When  he  left  her  at  las*  the  situation  was  still  a  bit 
hazy.  He  had  proposed  and  been  accepted  vaguely. 
But  when  he  had  gallantly  asked  her  to  "say  when" 
she  had  begged  for  time. 

Dyckman,  once  outside  the  spell  of  Kedzie's  eyes  and 
her  warmth,  felt  more  and  more  dubious.  He  was 
ashamed  of  himself  for  entertaining  any  doubts  of  the 
perfection  of  his  situation,  but  he  was  ashamed  also  of 
his  easy  surrender.  Here  he  was  with  his  freedom  gone. 
He  had  escaped  the  marriage-net  of  so  many  women  of  so 
much  brilliance  and  prestige,  and  yet  a  little  movie 
actress  had  landed  him. 

He  compared  Anita  Adair  with  Charity  Coe,  and  he 
had  to  admit  that  his  fiance'e  suffered  woefully  in  every 
contrast.  He  could  see  the  look  of  amazement  on  Char- 
ity's face  when  she  heard  the  news.  She  would  be  com- 
pletely polite  about  it,  but  she  would  be  appalled.  So 
would  his  father  and  mother.  They  would  fight  him 
tremendously.  His  friends  would  give  him  the  laugh, 
the  big  ha-ha!  They  would  say  he  had  made  a  fool 
of  himself;  he  had  been  an  easy  mark  for  a  little  out- 
sider. 

He  wondered  just  how  it  had  happened.  The  fact  was 
that  Kedzie  had  appealed  to  his  pity.  That  was  what 
none  of  the  other  eligibles  had  ever  done,  least  of  all 
Charity  the  ineligible. 

He  went  home.  He  found  his  father  and  mother  play- 
ing double  Canfield  and  wrangling  over  it  as  usual.  They 
were  disturbed  by  his  manner.  He  would  not  tell  them 
what  was  the  matter  and  left  them  to  their  game.  It 
interested  them  no  more.  It  seemed  so  unimportant 
whether  the  cards  fell  right  or  not.  The  points  were 
not  worth  the  excitement.  Their  son  was  playing  soli- 
taire, and  it  was  not  coming  out  at  all.  They  dis- 

307 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

cussed  the  possible  reasons  for  his  gloom.     There  were  so 
many. 

"I  wish  he'd  get  married  to  some  nice  girl,"  sighed 
Mrs.  Dyckman.  A  mother  is  pretty  desperate  when  she 
wants  to  surrender  her  son  to  another  woman. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

made  a  bad  night  of  it.  She  hated  her  lone- 
liness.  She  hated  her  room.  She  hated  her  maid. 
She  wanted  to  live  in  the  Dyckman  palace  and  have  a 
dozen  maids  and  a  pair  of  butlers  to  boss  around,  and 
valets,  and  a  crest  on  her  paper,  and  invitations  pouring 
in  from  people  whose  pictures  were  in  "the  social  world." 
She  wanted  to  snub  somebody  and  show  certain  folks 
what  was  what. 

The  next  morning  she  was  sure  of  only  one  thing,  and 
that  was  that  Dyckman  had  asked  her  to  be  his  wife; 
and  be  his  wife  she  would,  no  matter  what  it  cost. 

She  wondered  how  she  could  get  rid  of  Gilfoyle,  whom 
she  looked  upon  now  as  nothing  less  than  an  abductor.  He 
was  one  of  those  ' '  cadets ' '  the  papers  had  been  full  of  a  few 
years  before,  who  lured  young  girls  to  ruin  under  the  guise 
of  false  marriages  and  then  sold  them  as  "white  slaves." 

Kedzie's  wrath  was  at  the  fact  that  Gilfoyle  was  not 
legally  an  abductor.  She  would  have  been  glad  merely  to 
be  ruined,  and  she  would  have  rejoiced  at  the  possibility 
of  a  false  marriage.  In  the  movies  the  second  villain 
only  pretended  to  be  a  preacher,  and  then  confessed  his 
guilt.  But  such  an  easy  solution  was  not  for  Kedzie. 
New  York  City  had  licensed  Gilfoyle's  outrage;  the 
clerk  had  sold  her  to  him  for  two  dollars;  the  Municipal 
Building  was  the  too,  too  solid  witness. 

She  felt  a  spiritual  solace  in  the  fact  that  she  had  not 
had  a  religious  marriage.  The  sacrament  was  only 
municipal  and  did  not  count.  Her  wedding  had  lacked 
the  blessing  of  the  duly  constituted  ministry;  therefore 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

it  was  sacrilegious;  therefore  it  was  her  conscientious  duty 
to  undo  the  pagan  knot  as  quickly  as  possible.  She  re- 
verted to  the  good  old  way  of  the  Middle  Ages.  There 
was  no  curse  of  divorce  then,  and  indeed  there  was  small 
need  of  it,  since  annulment  could  usually  be  managed 
on  one  religious  ground  or  another,  or  if  not,  people  went 
about  their  business  as  if  it  had  been  managed. 

Kedzie  felt  absolved  of  any  fault  of  selfishness  now, 
and  justified  in  taking  any  steps  necessary  to  the  punish- 
ment of  Gilfoyle.  Religion  is  a  large,  loose  word,  and  it 
can  be  made  to  fit  any  motive;  but  once  assumed  it 
seems  to  strengthen  every  resolution,  to  chloroform  mercy 
and  hallow  any  means  to  the  self-sanctified  end.  What 
people  would  shrink  from  as  inhuman  they  constantly 
embrace  as  divine. 

Kedzie  wondered  how  she  could  communicate  with  her 
adversary.  She  might  best  go  to  Chicago  and  fight  her- 
self free  there.  There  would  be  less  risk  of  Dyckman's 
hearing  about  it. 

She  shuddered  at  what  she  would  have  to  tell  him 
unless  she  kept  the  divorce  secret.  He  might  not  love 
her  if  he  knew  she  was  not  the  nice  new  girl  he  thought 
her,  but  an  old  married  woman.  And  what  would  he  say 
when  he  found  that  her  real  name  was  Mrs.  Thomas 
Gilfoyle  nte  Kedzie  Thropp? 

But  first  Kedzie  must  divorce  herself  from  the  Hyper- 
film  Company.  She  went  to  the  studio  with  rage  in  her 
heart.  She  told  Ferriday  that  she  would  not  go  to 
California.  He  proposed  th'at  she  break  with  the  Hyper- 
film  Company  and  form  a  corporation  of  her  own  with 
Dyckman  as  angel. 

Kedzie  was  wroth  at  this.  From  now  on,  spending 
Dyckman's  money  would  be  like  spending  her  own. 
Ferriday,  once  her  accomplice  in  the  noble  business 
of  getting  Dyckman  to  back  her,  was  revealed  now  as  a 
cheap  swindler  trying  to  keep  Mrs.  Dyckman  in  trade 
at  her  husband's  expense. 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"  I'm  through  with  the  pictures,  I  tell  you !"  she  stormed. 
"I'm  sick  of  the  cheap  notoriety.  I'm  tired  of  being 
public  property.  I  can't  go  out  on  the  street  without 
being  pointed  at.  It's  disgusting.  I  don't  want  to  be  in- 
corporated or  photographed  or  interviewed.  I  want  to  be  let 
alone.  I'm  tired.  I've  worked  too  hard.  I  need  a  rest." 

Ferriday  hated  her  with  great  agility.  He  had  been 
willing  to  abet  her  breach  of  contract,  provided  she  let 
him  form  a  new  company,  but  if  she  would  not  that  made 
a  great  difference.  He  reminded  her: 

"The  Hyperfilm  Company  will  hold  you  to  your  bond. 
They  want  your  hundred  and  twenty-five  pounds  of  flesh. 
If  you  should  break  with  them  they'd  have  a  case  against 
you  for  damages." 

"How  much?"  said  Kedzie,  feeling  like  Mrs.  Crcesus. 

Ferriday  whistled  and  murmured:  "Spoken  like  the 
wife  of  a  multimillionaire!  So  you've  got  him  at  last." 

"To  who,"  Kedzie  began,  with  an  owl-like  effect  that 
she  corrected  with  some  confusion,  " — to  whom  do  you 
refer  to?" 

Ferriday  grinned:  "You're  going  to  marry  out  of  the 
movies,  and  you're  going  to  try  to  horn  into  sassiety. 
Well,  I  warned  you  before  that  if  you  became  Dyckman's 
wife  you  would  find  his  world  vastly  different  from  the 
ballroom  and  drawing-room  stuff  you  pull  off  in  the 
studio — strangely  and  mysteriously  different." 

He  frightened  her.  She  was  not  sure  of  herself.  She 
could  not  forget  Nimrim,  Missouri,  and  her  arrival  at  the 
edge  of  society  via  the  Bronx,  the  candy-shop,  and  the 
professional  camera. 

She  felt  that  the  world  had  not  treated  her  squarely. 
Why  should  she  have  to  carry  all  this  luggage  of  her  past 
through  the  gate  with  her?  She  wondered  if  it  would 
not  be  better  to  linger  in  the  studios  till  she  grew  more 
famous  and  could  bring  a  little  prestige  along. 

But  Ferriday  was  already  ousting  her  even  from  that 
security. 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"The  managers  of  the  Hyperfilm  Company  will  think 
you  have  done  them  dirt,  but  I'll  explain  that  you  are  not 
really  responsible.  You've  seen  a  million  dollars,  and 
you're  razzle-dazzled.  They'll  want  a  bit  of  that  million, 
I  suppose,  as  liquidated  damages,  but  I'll  try  to  keep 
them  down." 

Kedzie  was  at  bay  in  her  terror.     She  struck  back. 

"Tell  'em  they  won't  get  a  cent  if  they  try  to  play  the 
hog." 

"They  don't  have  hogs  on  Fifth  Avenue,  Anita.  Don't 
forget  that  Well,  good-by  and  good  luck." 

This  was  more  like  an  eviction  than  a  desertion.  Ked- 
zie felt  a  little  softening  of  her  heart  toward  the  old 
homestead. 

"I'm  sure  I'm  much  obliged  for  all  you've  done  for 
me." 

Ferriday  roared  his  scorn. 

She  went  on:  "I  am.  Honest-ly!  And  I  hope  I 
haven't  caused  you  too  much  inconvenience.'' 

Ferriday  betrayed  how  much  he  was  hurt  by  his  violent 
efforts  to  conceal  it. 

"Not  at  all.  It  happens  that  I've  just  found  another 
little  girl  to  take  your  place.  This  one  drifted  in  among 
the  extras,  just  as  you  did,  and  she's  a  dream.  I'll  show 
her  to  the  managers,  and  they  may  be  so  glad  to  get  her 
they  won't  charge  you  a  cent.  In  fact,  if  you  say  the 
word,  I  might  manage  it  so  that  they  would  pay  you 
something  to  cancel  your  contract." 

This  was  quite  too  cruel.  It  crushed  the  tears  out  of 
Kedzie's  eyes,  and  she  had  no  fight  left  in  her.  She 
simply  stammered: 

"No,  thank  you.     Don't  bother.     Well,  good-by." 

"Good-by,  Anita — good  luck!" 

He  let  her  make  her  way  out  of  his  office  alone.  She 
had  to  skirt  the  studio.  From  behind  a  canvas  wall  over 
which  the  Cooper-Hewitt  tubes  rained  a  quivering  blue 
glare  came  the  words  of  the  assistant  director: 

312 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Now  choke  her,  Hazlitt!  Harder!  Register  despair, 
Miss  Hardy.  Try  to  scream  and  can't!  That's  good. 
Now,  Walsh,  jump  in  to  the  rescue.  Slug  him.  Knock 
his  bean  off.  'S  enough!  Fall,  Hazlitt.  Now  gather  up 
Miss  Hardy,  Walsh.  Register  devotion,  gratitude,  adora- 
tion— now  you  got  it.  Turn  on  your  lamps  full  power, 
dearie!  Wow!  Bully!  A  couple  of  tears,  please.  That's 
the  stuff.  You'll  be  the  queen  of  the  world.  Weep  a 
little  more.  Real  tears.  That's  it!  Now  clinch  for  the 
fade-out.  Cut!" 

Kedzie  tiptoed  away.  She  felt  as  Eve  must  have  felt 
sneaking  out  of  Eden  and  hearing  the  nightingales  wran- 
gling and  the  leopards  at  play. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

WE  must  fly  fast  and  keep  on  flying  if  we  would 
escape  from  our  pasts.  Ambition,  adventure,  or 
sheer  luck  may  carry  us  forward  out  of  them  as  in  a 
cavalry-foray  over  strange  frontiers,  but  sooner  or  later 
we  must  wait  for  our  wagons  or  fall  back  to  them. 

Kedzie's  past  was  catching  up  with  her.  It  is  a  glorious 
thing  when  one's  past  comes  up  loaded  with  food,  muni- 
tions, good  deeds,  charities,  mercies,  valued  friendships. 
But  poor  little  Kedzie's  little  past  included  one  incom- 
petent and  unacknowledged  husband  and  two  village 
parents. 

Kedzie  had  concealed  the  existence  of  Gilfoyle  from  her 
new  friends  as  anxiously  as  if  he  had  been  a  baby  born 
out  of  wedlock  instead  of  a  grown  man  born  into  it. 
And  Gilfoyle  had  returned  the  compliment.  He  had  not 
told  his  new  friends  in  Chicago  that  he  was  married,  be- 
cause the  Anita  Adair  that  he  had  left  in  New  York  was, 
as  F.  P.  A.  would  say,  his  idea  of  nothing  to  brag  about. 

Gilfoyle  had  loved  Kedzie  once  as  a  pretty  photog- 
rapher's model,  and  had  admired  her  as  an  exquisite 
dancing-creature  who  seemed  to  have  spun  off  at  a  tangent 
from  the  painted  side  of  an  old  Greek  amphora.  He  had 
actually  written  poetry  to  her !  And  when  a  poet  has  done 
that  for  a  girl  he  feels  that  he  has  done  more  for  her  than 
she  can  ever  repay.  Even  if  she  gives  him  her  mortal 
self,  what  is  that  to  the  immortality  he  has  given  her? 

When  Kedzie  telegraphed  Gilfoyle  that  she  had  lost 
her  job  in  Newport  and  had  arrived  in  New  York  lonely 
and  afraid,  had  he  not  taken  care  of  her  good  name  by 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

giving  her  his  own?  Not  to  mention  a  small  matter  of 
all  his  money! 

She  had  repaid  him  with  frantic  discontent.  The  morn- 
ing after  the  wedding,  was  she  not  imitating  the  parrot's 
shrill  ridicule  of  life  and  love?  Did  she  ridicule  his 
poetry,  or  didn't  she  ?  She  did.  Instead  of  being  his  nine 
Muses,  she  had  become  his  three  Furies. 

When  he  lost  his  job  and  she  went  out  to  get  one  of  her 
own,  had  she  succeeded  in  getting  anything  with  dignity 
in  it  ?  No !  She  had  become  an  extra  woman  in  a  movie 
mob.  That  was  a  belittling  thing  to  remember.  But 
worst  of  all,  she  had  committed  the  unpardonable  sin  for 
a  woman — she  had  lent  him  money.  He  could  never  for- 
give or  forget  the  horrible  fact  that  he  had  borrowed  her 
last  cash  to  pay  his  fare  to  Chicago. 

Next  to  that  for  inexcusableness  was  her  self-support — 
and,  worse,  self-sufficiency.  Gilfoyle  had  sent  Kedzie 
no  money  beyond  returning  what  he  had  borrowed,  and 
she  had  not  used  that  to  buy  a  ticket  to  Chicago  with. 
She  had  written  rarely,  and  had  not  asked  him  for  money. 
That  was  mighty  convenient  for  him,  but  it  was  extremely 
suspicious,  and  he  cherished  it  as  a  further  grudge. 

He  never  found  himself  quite  flush  enough  to  force  any 
money  on  her,  because  he  had  found  that  it  costs  money 
to  live  in  Chicago,  too.  People  in  New  York  get  the 
idea  that  it  costs  everything  to  live  in  New  York  and 
nothing  to  live  anywhere  else — if  it  can  be  called  living. 

Gilfoyle  also  discovered  that  his  gifts  were  not  ap- 
preciated in  Chicago  as  he  had  expected  them  to  be. 
Chicago  people  seemed  to  think  it  quite  natural  for  New 
York  to  call  for  help  from  Chicago,  and  successful  Western 
men  were  constantly  going  East;  but  for  a  New-Yorker 
to  revert  to  Chicago  looked  queer.  He  appeared  to 
patronize,  and  yet  he  must  have  had  some  peculiar  reason 
for  giving  up  New  York. 

All  in  all  and  by  and  large,  Gilfoyle  was  not  happy  in 
Chicago.  The  few  persons,  mainly  women,  who  took 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

him  up  as  an  interesting  novelty  grew  tired  of  him.  His 
advertising  schemes  did  not  dazzle  the  alert  Illini.  For 
one  reason  or  another  the  wares  he  celebrated  did  not 
"go  big." 

He  lost  his  first  job  and  took  an  inferior  wage  with  a 
shabbier  firm.  He  took  his  women  friends  to  the  movies 
now  instead  of  the  theaters.  And  so  it  was  that  one 
night  when  he  was  beauing  a  Denver  woman,  who  was  on 
her  way  to  New  York  and  fame,  he  found  the  box-line 
extending  out  on  the  sidewalk  and  half-way  up  the  block. 
It  was  irksome  to  wait,  but  people  like  to  go  to  shows 
where  the  crowds  are.  He  took  his  place  in  the  line,  and 
his  Miss  Clampett  stood  at  his  elbow. 

The  queue  was  slowly  drawn  into  the  theater  and  he 
finally  reached  a  place  in  front  of  the  lithographs.  He 
almost  jumped  out  of  his  skin  when  he  saw  a  colossal 
head  of  Anita  Adair  smiling  at  him  from  a  sunbonnet 
streaming  with  curls. 

The  letterpress  informed  Gilfoyle  that  it  was  indeed 
his  own  Anita.  The  people  in  the  line  were  talking  of  her 
as  the  new  star.  They  were  calling  her  familiarly  by  her 
first  name  and  discussing  her  with  all  the  freedom  of  the 
crowd: 

"That's  Anita.     Ain't  she  sweet?" 

"Everybody  says  Anita's  just  too  lovely." 

"Some  queen,  boy?  Me  for  Anita.  She  can  pack  her 
clothes  in  my  trunk!" 

Gilfoyle  felt  that  he  ought  in  common  decency  to  knock 
down  this  fellow  who  claimed  the  privileges  belonging  to 
himself.  But  he  remembered  that  he  had  abandoned 
those  privileges.  And  the  fellow  looked  unrefinedly 
powerful. 

Gilfoyle  gnawed  the  lip  of  silence,  realizing  also  that  his 
announcement  would  make  a  strange  impression  on  Miss 
Clampett.  She  was  one  of  those  authors  one  reads  about 
who  think  it  necessary  to  hunt  experiences  and  live  ro- 
mances in  order  to  find  literary  material. 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Gilfoyle  had  done  his  best  to  teach  her  how  wildly  well 
a  born  New-Yorker  can  play  the  lute  of  emotion.  To  pro- 
claim now  that  he  was  the  anonymous  husband  of  this 
glitterer  on  the  billboard  would  have  been  a  shocking 
confession. 

Gilfoyle  swallowed  his  secret,  but  it  made  his  heart 
flutter  tremendously.  When  at  length  he  and  Miss 
Clampett  were  admitted  to  the  theater  and  walked  down 
the  aisle  Kedzie  came  from  the  background  of  the  screen 
forward  as  if  to  meet  him.  She  came  on  and  on,  and 
finally  as  he  reached  his  seat,  a  close-up  of  her  brought 
them  face  to  face  with  a  vividness  that  almost  knocked 
him  over.  She  looked  right  at  him,  seemed  to  recognize 
him,  and  stopped  short. 

He  felt  as  guilty  as  if  she  had  actually  caught  him  at  a 
rendezvous.  Yet  he  felt  pride,  too. 

This  luminous  being  was  his  wife.  He  remembered  all 
that  she  had  been  to  him.  Miss  Clampett  noted  his 
perturbations  and  made  a  brilliant  guess  at  their  cause. 
She  asked  him  if  he  wanted  to  leave  her  and  go  around  to 
the  stage  door  to  meet  this  wonderful  Miss  Adair.  Gil- 
foyle laughed  poorly  at  her  quip.  He  was  surprised  to 
learn  from  her  that  Anita  Adair  was  already  a  sensation 
among  the  film  stars.  He  had  not  chanced  to  read  the 
pages  where  her  press-matter  had  celebrated  her.  He 
defended  himself  from  the  jealousy  of  Miss  Clampett  very 
lamely;  for  the  luscious  beauty  of  his  Anita,  her  graphic 
art,  and  her  sway  over  the  audience  rekindled  his  primal 
emotions  to  a  greater  fire  than  ever. 

When  the  show  was  over  he  abandoned  Miss  Clampett 
on  her  door-step  and  went  to  his  own  boarding-house  in  a 
nympholepsy.  He  was  a  mortal  wedded  to  a  fairy.  He 
was  Endymion  with  a  moon  enamoured  of  him.  Kedzie 
indeed  had  come  down  from  the  screen  to  Gilfoyle,  clothed 
in  an  unearthly  effulgence. 

The  next  morning  he  turned  to  the  moving-picture 
columns  of  the  Chicago  Tribune,  the  Herald,  and  the  other 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

papers,  and  he  found  that  Kedzie  was  celebrated  there 
with  enthusiasm  by  Kitty  Kelly,  "Mae  Tinee,"  Mrs.  Par- 
sons, and  the  rest  of  the  critics  of  the  new  art.  On  Sunday 
several  of  her  interviews  appeared,  and  her  portraits,  in 
eminent  company. 

Gilfoyle's  forgotten  affections  came  back  to  life,  ex- 
panding and  efflorescent.  He  throbbed  with  the  wonder 
of  it.  The  moving  picture  had  brought  romance  again  to 
earth. 

Thousands  of  men  all  over  the  country  were  falling  in 
love  with  Kedzie.  Who  had  a  better  right  to  than  her 
husband?  Unconsciously  his  resentments  against  her  fell 
away.  His  heart  swelled  with  such  plenitude  of  forgive- 
ness that  he  might  in  time  have  overlooked  the  money  she 
lent  him.  It  was  not  a  disgrace  to  accept  money  from  a 
genius  of  her  candle-power. 

For  a  long  while  he  had  been  afraid  that  she  would 
telegraph  him  for  funds,  or  descend  on  him  in  Chicago 
and  bring  a  heavy  baggage  of  necessities.  Now  he  was  no 
longer  afraid  of  that.  He  was  afraid  that  if  he  called  on 
her  in  New  York  she  might  not  remember  him. 

He  had  heard  of  the  real  and  the  alleged  salaries  of 
moving-picture  stars,  and  he  assumed  that  Kedzie  must 
be  as  well  paid  as  she  was  well  advertised.  He  did  not 
know  of  the  measly  little  hundred  dollars  a  week  she  was 
bound  down  to  by  her  contract.  If  he  had  known  he 
would  have  rejoiced,  because  one  hundred  dollars  a  week 
was  about  four  times  more  than  Gilfoyle  had  ever  earned. 

Of  course  Gilfoyle  resolved  to  go  to  New  York.  Of 
course  he  started  to  telegraph  his  wife  and  found  the 
telegram  hard  to  write.  Then  he  began  a  long  letter  and 
found  it  harder  to  write.  And  of  course  he  finally  decided 
to  surprise  her.  He  resigned  his  job.  His  resignation  was 
accepted  with  humiliating  cordiality. 

Of  course  he  took  the  Twentieth  Century  Limited  to 
New  York  It  was  more  expensive,  but  it  was  quicker; 
and  what  did  a  few  dollars  matter,  now  that  he  was  the 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

husband  of  such  an  earner?  He  had  unwittingly  hitched 
his  wagon  to  a  star,  and  now  he  would  take  a  ride  through 
heaven.  He  wrote  a  poem  or  two  to  that  effect,  and  the 
train-wheels  inspired  his  prosody. 

He  dreamed  of  an  ideal  life  in  which  he  should  loll 
upon  a  sofa  of  ease,  thrumming  his  lyre,  while  his  wife 
devoted  herself  to  her  career  outside. 

Where  would  Horace  and  Virgil  have  been  if  they  had 
not  had  their  expenses  paid  by  old  Mr.  Maecenas?  Since 
Mrs.  Gilfoyle  could  afford  to  be  a  patroness,  let  her 
patronage  begin  at  home.  Her  reward  would  be  beyond 
price,  for  Gilfoyle  decided  to  perpetuate  her  fame  in 
powerful  rhyme  far  outlasting  the  celluloid  in  which  she 
was  writing  her  name  now. 

Celluloid  is  perishable  indeed,  and  very  inflammable. 
Gilfoyle  did  not  know  that  the  Hyperfilm  studio  had 
burned  to  the  ground  before  he  saw  Kedzie's  picture  in 
Chicago.  But  he  blithely  left  that  city  to  its  fate  and 
sped  eastward. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

^>ILFOYLE  reached  New  York  on  the  Twentieth 
\J>  Century.  It  was  an  hour  late,  and  so  the  railroad 
company  paid  him  a  dollar.  He  wished  it  had  been  later. 
In  his  present  plight  time  was  anything  but  money  to 
him. 

It  took  him  some  time  to  find  the  Hyperfilm  Company's 
temporary  studio.  He  learned  of  the  fire,  and  his  hope 
wavered.  When  he  reached  the  studio  Kedzie  was  not 
there.  The  news  of  her  resignation  had  percolated  even 
to  the  doorman,  who  rarely  knew  anything  from  inside 
or  outside  the  studio — an  excellent  non-conductor  of 
information  he  was.  Gilfoyle  had  some  difficulty  in  find- 
ing Kedzie's  address,  but  at  last  he  learned  it,  and  he 
made  haste  to  her  apartment. 

He  was  impressed  by  its  gaudy  vestibule.  He  told  the 
hall-boy  that  he  wanted  to  see  Miss  Adair. 

"Name,  please?" 

"Just  say  a  gentleman  to  see  her." 

"  Gotta  git  the  name,  or  I  can't  'phome  up.  Miss  Adair 
naturally  won't  see  no  gempman  ain't  got  a  name." 

"Does  she  see  many  men?"  Gilfoyle  asked,  with  sudden 
alarm. 

"Oh,  nossa.  Mainly  Mr.  Dyckman.  But  that's  her 
business." 

"What  Dyckman  is  that,  the  rich  Jim  Dyckman?" 

"Well,  I  ain't  s'posed  to  give  out  info'mation." 

"Are  you  supposed  to  take  in  money?"  Gilfoyle 
juggled  with  a  half-dollar. 

The  hall-boy  juggled  his  eyes  in  unison,  and  laughed 
320 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

yearningly:  "I  reckon  I  might  let  you  up  by  mistake. 
Does  you  know  Miss  Adair  right  well?" 

"Very  well — I'm  a  relative  of  hers  by  marriage.  I 
want  to  surprise  her." 

"Oh,  well,  you  better  go  on  up." 

Gilfoyle  applied  the  magic  silver  wafer  to  the  itching 
palm  and  stepped  into  the  elevator  when  it  came. 

21 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

T/^EDZIE  was  alone.  She  had  sent  her  maid  out  to  get 
fS.  some  headache  powders.  She  had  had  a  good  cry 
when  she  reached  home.  She  had  pondered  her  little 
brain  into  a  kink,  trying  to  figure  out  her  campaign. 
When  she  had  a  headache,  or  a  cold,  or  a  sleepless  night, 
or  a  lethargy,  she  always  put  a  powder  in  her  stomach. 
It  never  did  any  good,  and  she  was  always  changing  the 
nostrum,  but  she  never  changed  the  idea. 

She  felt  ill  and  took  off  her  street  suit  and  her  corsets, 
put  on  a  soft,  veilly  thing,  and  stretched  out  on  her  long- 
chair. 

She  was  coddling  a  photograph  of  Jim  Dyckman.  He 
had  scrawled  across  it,  "To  Little  Anita  from  Big  Jim." 
She  kissed  the  picture  and  cherished  it  to  her  aching  breast. 

The  door-bell  rang.  She  supposed  that,  as  usual,  the 
maid  had  forgotten  to  take  her  key  with  her.  She  went 
into  the  hall  in  a  rage,  still  holding  the  photograph.  She 
flung  the  door  open — and  in  walked  Gilfoyle. 

She  fell  back  stupefied.  He  grinned,  and  took  her  in 
with  devouring  eyes.  If  he  had  no  right  to  devour  her, 
who  had?  He  approved  of  her  with  a  rush  of  delight: 

"Well,  Anita,  here  I  am.     And  how's  the  little  wife?" 

She  could  not  answer  him.  He  stared  ferociously,  and 
gasped  as  if  he  had  forgotten  how  she  had  looked: 

"Golly,  but  you're  beautiful?     Where's  the  little  kiss?" 

He  threw  his  arms  about  her,  garnering  in  the  full  sheaf 
of  her  beauty.  She  tried  to  escape,  to  protest,  but  he 
smothered  her  with  his  lips.  She  had  been  so  long 
away  from  him,  she  had  so  long  omitted  him  from  her 

322 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

plans,  that  she  felt  a  sense  of  outrage  in  his  assault.  Some- 
thing virginal  had  resumed  her  heart,  and  his  proprietor- 
ship revolted  her. 

Her  shoulders  were  so  constrained  that  she  could 
not  push  free.  She  could  only  raise  her  right  hand  outside 
his  left  arm,  and  reaching  his  face,  thrust  it  away.  Her 
nails  were  long  and  sharp.  They  tore  deep  gashes  in  his 
cheeks  and  across  his  nose. 

He  let  her  go  with  a  yelp  of  pain  and  shame.  His  fists 
gathered;  primeval  instinct  told  him  to  smash  the  mask 
of  pale  hatred  he  saw  before  him.  But  he  saw  the  photo- 
graph in  her  left  hand.  It  had  been  bent  double  in  the 
scuffle.  He  snatched  at  it  and  tore  away  the  lower  half. 
He  read  the  inscription  with  disgust  and  growled: 

"That's  the  reason  you  didn't  write  me!  That's  why 
you  don't  want  to  see  me,  eh?  So  he's  keeping  you! 
And  that's  why  you  resigned  from  the  studio!" 

The  atrocity  of  this  slander  was  too  much.  With  a 
little  cat-like  yowl  she  went  for  him,  dropping  the  broken 
photograph  and  spreading  all  ten  claws. 

He  caught  her  arms  and  held  them  apart  where  she  could 
scratch  nothing  more  than  his  wrists,  which  she  did  ven- 
omously. The  cat  tribe  is  a  bad  tribe  to  fight  at  close 
quarters.  One  must  kill  or  break  loose. 

When  Kedzie  tried  to  bite  him,  Gilfoyle  realized  that 
she  was  in  no  mood  for  argument.  He  dragged  her  to  the 
living-room  door  and  then  flung  her  as  far  as  he  could 
from  him.  She  toppled  over  into  a  chair  and  began  to  cry. 

It  was  not  a  pretty  scene.  Gilfoyle  took  out  his 
handkerchief  and  pressed  it  to  his  face  and  the  bridge  of 
his  nose.  Then  he  looked  at  the  red  marks  and  held  them 
out  for  her  to  observe : 

"See  what  you  did  to  me!" 

"I'm  glad  of  it,"  she  snapped.  "I  wish  I'd  torn  your 
eyes  out." 

This  alone  would  not  necessarily  have  proved  that  she 
did  not  love  him  devotedly,  but  in  this  case  it  corroborated 

323 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

a  context  of  hatred.  Gilfoyle  felt  rebuffed.  There  was 
a  distinct  lack  of  hospitality  in  her  welcome.  This  re- 
ception was  the  very  opposite  of  his  imagined  rencounter. 

He  did  what  a  man  usually  does,  revealing  a  masculine 
inability  to  argue  with  a  woman.  He  told  her  all  her 
faults  of  omission  and  commission  as  if  that  would  bring 
her  to  a  reconciliating  humor.  She  listened  awhile,  and 
then  answered,  with  a  perfect  logic  that  baffled  him: 

"All  you  say  only  goes  to  show  that  you  don't  love  me. 
You  never  did.  You  went  away  and  left  me.  I  might 
have  starved,  for  all  you  cared.  But  I've  worked  like  a 
dog,  and  now  that  I've  had  a  little  success  you  come  back 
and  say:  'How's  the  little  wife?  Where's  the  little  kiss?' 
Agh!  And  you  dare  to  kiss  me!  And  then  you  slander 
me.  You  don't  give  me  credit  for  these  plain  little  rooms 
that  I  rent  with  my  own  hard-earned  money.  You 
couldn't  imagine  me  living  in  a  place  like  this  unless  some 
man  paid  for  it.  Heaven  knows  I'd  have  lived  with  you 
long  enough  before  I  ever  had  a  decent  home.  Humph! 
Well,  I  guess  so!  Humph!" 

Gilfoyle  mopped  his  face  again  and  looked  at  his 
handkerchief.  One's  own  blood  is  very  interesting. 
The  sight  of  his  wounds  did  not  touch  Kedzie's  heart. 
She  could  never  feel  sorry  for  anybody  she  was  mad  at. 

Gilfoyle' s  wits  were  scattered.  He  mumbled,  futilely, 
"Well,  if  that's  the  way  you  feel  about  it!" 

"That's  the  way  I  feel  about  it!"  Kedzie  raged  on.  "I 
suppose  you've  had  so  many  affairs  of  your  own  out  there 
that  you  can't  imagine  anybody  else  being  respectable, 
can  you?" 

Gilfoyle  had  not  come  East  to  publish  his  autobiography. 
He  thought  that  a  gesture  of  misunderstood  despair  would 
be  the  most  effective  evasion.  So  he  made  it,  and 
turned  away.  He  put  his  handkerchief  to  his  nose  and 
looked  at  it.  He  turned  back. 

"Would  you  mind  if  I  went  into  your  bathroom  to 
wash  my  face?" 

324 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"I  certainly  would.  Where  do  you  think  you  are? 
You  get  on  out  before  my  maid  comes  back.  I  don't 
want  her  to  think  I  receive  men  alone!" 

Her  heart  was  cold  as  a  toad  in  her  breast,  and  she 
loathed  his  presence.  He  repeated  his  excellent  gesture 
of  despair,  sighed,  "All  right,"  and  left  the  room.  The 
two  pieces  of  Jim  Dyckman's  photograph  were  still  on 
the  floor  of  the  hall.  He  stooped  quickly  and  silently 
and  picked  them  up  as  he  went  out.  He  closed  the  door 
with  all  the  elegy  one  can  put  in  a  door  with  a  snap-lock. 

He  was  about  to  press  the  elevator  button,  but  he  did 
not  like  to  present  himself  gory  to  the  elevator-boy.  He 
walked  down  the  marble  and  iron  steps  zigzagging  around 
the  elevator  shaft. 

He  paused  on  various  landings  to  think  and  mop.  He 
looked  at  the  photograph  of  Dyckman,  and  his  heart 
spoiled  in  him.  He  recalled  his  wife's  anxiety  lest  her 
maid  should  find  a  man  there.  He  recalled  the  hall- 
boy's  statement  that  Mr.  Dyckman  was  often  there.  His 
wife  was  lying  to  him,  plainly. 

He  had  known  detectives  and  newspaper  men  and  had 
heard  them  speak  of  what  a  friend  they  had  in  the  usual 
hall-boy.  He  thought  that  he  had  here  the  makings  of 
a  very  pretty  little  bit  of  detectivity. 

He  reached  the  main  floor,  but  made  a  hasty  crossing 
of  the  gaudy  vestibule  without  stopping  to  speak  to  the 
hall-boy.  He  had  left  his  baggage  at  the  station,  expect- 
ing to  send  it  to  his  wife's  apartment  when  he  found  it. 
He  had  found  it,  but  he  could  imagine  what  would  happen 
to  the  baggage  if  he  sent  it  there. 

"All  right!"  he  said  to  himself.  "If  it's  war  she  wants, 
cry  havoc  and  let  slip  the  sleuth  hounds." 

He  went  to  a  drug-store  and  had  his  wounds  sterilized 
and  plastered,  saying  that  a  pet  cat  had  scratched  him. 

"Just  so,"  said  the  drug  clerk,  with  a  grin.  "Pet  cats 
are  very  dangerous." 

Gilfoyle  wanted  to  slug  him,  but  he  wanted  his  wounds 

125 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

dressed  more.  He  walked  and  walked  down  the  back 
avenues  till  he  reached  his  old  boarding-house  district 
near  Greenwich  Village.  He  found  a  landlady  who  had 
trusted  him  often  and  been  paid  eventually.  He  gave 
his  baggage  checks  to  an  expressman  and  went  into 
retirement  for  meditation. 

When  his  suit-case  arrived  he  got  out  the  poems  he  had 
been  writing  to  Anita.  He  clenched  them  for  destruction, 
but  an  exquisite  line  caught  his  eye.  Why  should  his 
art  suffer  because  of  a  woman's  perfidy?  He  had  in- 
tended to  sonnetize  Anita  into  perenniality.  She  had 
played  him  false.  Just  for  that  he  would  leave  her  mortal. 
She  should  perish. 

The  poems  would  keep.  He  might  find  another  and  a 
worthier  client  for  posterity.  Or  he  might  put  an  im- 
aginary name  there,  as  other  poets  had  done.  He  wanted 
one  that  would  slip  into  the  poetry  easily.  He  could  use 
"Pepita"  without  deranging  the  rhyme. 

He  glared  at  the  picture  of  Dyckman.  He  knew  the 
face  well.  He  had  seen  it  in  print  numberless  times.  He 
had  had  the  man  pointed  out  to  him  at  races  and  horse- 
shows  and  polo-games  and  bazaars. 

He  struck  the  photograph  in  the  face,  realizing  that  he 
could  not  have  reached  the  face  of  the  big  athlete.  He 
wondered  why  this  fellow  should  have  been  given  such 
stature  with  such  wealth.  He  was  ghastly  rich,  the  snob, 
the  useless  cumberer  of  the  ground ! 

All  of  Gilfoyle's  pseudo-socialistic  hostility  to  wealth  and 
the  wealthy  came  to  the  aid  of  his  jealousy.  To  despoil 
the  man  was  a  duty.  He  had  decoyed  Anita  from  her 
duty  by  his  millions.  Not  that  she  was  unwilling  to  be 
decoyed.  And  now  she  would  revel  in  her  ill-got  luxury, 
while  her  legal  husband  could  starve  in  a  garret. 

As  he  brooded,  the  vision  of  Dyckman 's  money  grew 
huger  and  huger.  The  dog  had  not  merely  thousands  or 
hundreds  of  thousands,  but  thousands  of  thousands. 
Gilfoyle  had  never  seen  a  thousand-dollar  bill.  Yet 

326 


Dyckman,  he  had  heard,  was  worth  twenty  millions. 
If  his  wealth  were  changed  into  thousand-dollar  bills 
there  would  be  twenty  thousand  of  them  in  a  stack. 

If  Gilfoyle  peeled  off  one  thousand  of  those  thousand- 
dollar  bills  the  stack  would  not  be  perceptibly  diminished. 
If  Gilfoyle  could  get  a  million  dollars  from  Dyckman,  or 
any  part  of  it,  Dyckman  would  never  notice  it;  and  yet 
it  would  mean  a  life  of  surety  and  poetry  and  luxury  for 
Gilfoyle. 

If  he  caught  Dyckman  and  Anita  together  in  a  com- 
promising situation  he  could  collect  heavily  under  threat 
of  exposure.  Rather  than  be  dragged  into  the  news- 
papers and  the  open  courts  Dyckman  would  pay  almost 
any  sum. 

There  was  a  law  in  New  York  against  the  violation  of  the 
seventh  commandment,  and  the  penitentiary  was  the 
punishment.  The  law  had  failed  to  catch  its  first  victim, 
but  it  had  been  used  in  Massachusetts  with  success. 
The  threat  against  Dyckman  would  surely  work. 

Then  there  was  the  recent  Mann  Law  aimed  at  white- 
slavery  but  a  more  effective  weapon  for  blackmailers. 
If  Gilfoyle  could  catch  Dyckman  taking  Anita  motoring 
across  the  State  line  into  New  Jersey  or  Connecticut  he 
could  arrest  them  or  threaten  them. 

Also  he  could  name  Dyckman  as  co-respondent  in  a 
divorce  suit — or  threaten  to — and  collect  heavily  that 
way.  This  was  not  blackmail  in  Gilfoyle's  eyes.  He 
scorned  such  a  crime.  This  was  honorable  and  necessary 
vindication  of  his  offended  dignity.  There  was  probably 
never  a  practiser  of  blackmail  who  did  not  find  a  better 
word  for  the  duress  he  applied. 

Gilfoyle  needed  help.  He  had  no  cash  to  hire  a  detec- 
tive with.  But  he  knew  a  detective  or  two  who  might  go 
into  the  thing  with  him  on  spec'. 

Gilfoyle  began  to  compose  a  scheme  of  poetic  revenge. 
It  should  be  his  palinode  to  Anita.  He  would  keep  her 
under  surveillance,  but  he  would  not  let  her  know  of  his 

32? 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

propinquity.    A  happy  thought  delighted  him.     To  throw 
her  off  her  guard,  he  wrote  and  sent  a  little  note: 

DEAR  ANITA, — Since  you  evidently  don't  love  me  any  longer, 
I  will  not  bother  you  any  more.  I  am  taking  the  train  back  to 
Chicago.  Address  me  there  care  of  General  Delivery  if  you 
ever  want  to  see  me  again. 

YOUR  ONCE  LOVED  HUSBAND. 

He  addressed  it  and  gave  it  to  the  waitress  to  drop  in 
the  mail-box.  He  had  no  money  to  squander  on  detec- 
tives, but  he  had  a  friend,  Connery,  who  as  a  reporter  had 
achieved  a  few  bits  of  sleuthing  in  cases  that  had  baffled 
the  police.  That  evening  Gilfoyle  went  hunting  for 
Connery. 


CHAPTER   XXIX 

simmered  in  her  own  wrath  a  long  while 
before  she  realized  that  she  had  let  Gilfoyle  escape. 
He  was  the  very  man  she  was  looking  for,  and  she  had 
planned  to  go  even  to  Chicago  to  find  him. 

He  had  stumbled  into  her  trap,  and  she  had  driven 
him  out.  She  ran  to  the  window  and  stared  up  and  down 
the  street,  but  there  was  no  trace  of  him.  She  had  no 
idea  where  he  could  have  gone.  She  wrung  her  hands 
and  denounced  herself  for  a  fool. 

She  went  to  the  hall  to  pick  up  the  photograph  of 
Jim  Dyckman.  Both  halves  of  it  were  gone.  Now 
she  was  frightened.  Gilfoyle  had  departed  meekly,  but 
he  had  taken  the  picture;  therefore  he  must  have  been 
filled  with  hate.  He  had  revenge  in  his  mind.  And 
she  trembled  at  her  danger.  He  might  strike  at  any 
time. 

She  suspected  his  exact  intention.  She  dreaded  to  have 
Jim  Dyckman  call  on  her.  She  had  a  wild  notion  of  asking 
him  to  take  her  away  from  New  York — down  to  Atlantic 
City  or  up  to  the  Berkshires — anywhere  to  be  rid  of 
Gilfoyle  without  being  left  alone.  If  she  had  done  this 
she  would  have  done  just  what  Gilfoyle  wanted  her  to, 
and  the  Mann  Act  could  have  been  wielded  again  as  a 
blackjack. 

Meanwhile  Anita  was  afraid  to  have  Dyckman  come  to 
her  apartment  as  he  constantly  did.  She  telephoned  to 
him  that  she  would  be  busy  at  the  studio  all  day.  She 
would  meet  him  at  dinner  somewhere.  But  afterward 
she  would  come  home  alone  on  one  pretext  or  another. 

329 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

She  carried  out  this  plan — and  spent  a  day  of  confused 
terror  and  anger. 

When  Gilfoyle's  letter  arrived,  saying  that  he  was  on 
his  way  to  Chicago,  it  gave  her  more  delight  than  any 
other  writing  of  his  had  ever  given  her.  She  need  not 
skulk  any  more.  Her  problem  was  as  far  from  solution 
as  ever,  but  she  wanted  a  respite  from  it,  and  she  gave 
herself  up  to  a  few  days  of  rapture.  She  was  free  from 
her  work  at  the  studio,  and  she  was  like  a  girl  home  from 
boarding-school  on  a  vacation. 

Dyckman  found  her  charming  in  this  mood.  She  made 
a  child  of  him,  and  his  years  of  dissatisfaction  were  for- 
gotten. He  romped  through  the  festivals  of  New  York 
like  a  cub. 

There  was  no  discussion  of  any  date  of  marriage,  and  he 
was  glad  enough  to  let  the  matter  drift.  He  did  not  want 
to  marry  Kedzie.  He  was  satisfied  to  have  her  as  a  play- 
mate. He  was  afraid  to  think  of  her  as  a  wife,  not  only 
from  fear  of  the  public  sensation  it  would  make,  but  from 
fear  of  her  in  his  home.  Young  men  also  know  the 
timidities  that  are  considered  maidenly.  He  did  not 
dream  of  Kedzie's  reason  for  postponing  always  the  matter 
of  a  wedding  date. 

Kedzie  had  come  to  depend  on  Jim  for  her  entertain- 
ment. He  took  care  of  her  evenings,  gave  them  vivacity 
and  opulence.  He  took  her  to  theaters,  to  the  opera,  the 
music-halls,  the  midnight  roofs,  and  other  resorts  for  the 
postponement  of  sleep.  Occasionally  he  introduced  her 
to  friends  of  his  whom  they  encountered.  It  pained  and 
angered  him,  and  Kedzie,  too,  to  note  that  the  men  were 
inclined  to  eye  Kedzie  with  tolerant  amusement.  There 
was  a  twinkle  of  contempt  in  their  smiling  eyes  that 
seemed  to  say: 

"Where  did  Dyckman  pick  you  up,  my  pretty?" 

Kedzie's  movie  fame  was  unknown  to  Dyckman's  crowd. 
She  was  treated,  accordingly,  as  some  exquisite  chorus-girl 
or  cabaret-pony  that  he  had  selected  as  a  running-mate. 

330 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Dyckman  could  not  openly  resent  what  was  subtly 
implied,  but  it  touched  his  chivalry,  and  since  he  was 
engaged  to  Kedzie  he  felt  that  he  ought  at  least  to  an- 
nounce the  fact.  He  was  getting  the  game  without  the 
name,  and  that  seemed  unfair  to  Kedzie. 

Kedzie  felt  the  same  veiled  scorn,  and  it  alarmed  her; 
yet  when  Dyckman  proposed  the  publication  of  their 
troth  she  forbade  it  vigorously.  She  writhed  at  the  worse 
than  Tantalus  fate  that  compelled  her  to  push  from  her 
own  thirsty  lips  the  grapes  of  felicity. 

She  had  no  intention  of  committing  bigamy,  even  if 
she  had  been  temptable  to  such  recklessness.  The  in- 
evitable brevity  of  its  success  was  only  too  evident.  A 
large  part  of  the  fun  of  marrying  Dyckman  would  be  the 
publication  of  it,  and  that  would  bring  Gilfoyle  back. 
She  never  before  longed  so  ardently  to  see  her  husband 
as  now. 

She  finally  wrote  him  a  letter  begging  him  to  return  to 
New  York  for  a  conference.  She  couched  it  in  luringly 
affectionate  tones  and  apologized  lavishly  for  scratching 
his  face  when  he  called.  She  addressed  the  appeal  to  the 
General  Delivery  in  Chicago,  as  he  had  directed  in  the 
letter  he  wrote  as  a  blind. 

She  neglected,  as  usual,  to  put  her  own  address  on  the 
envelope  or  inside  on  the  letter,  which  she  signed  with  a 
mere  "Anita."  Gilfoyle  did  not  call  for  the  letter  in 
Chicago,  since  he  was  in  New  York.  It  was  held  in 
Chicago  for  the  legal  period  and  then  it  was  sent  to  the 
Dead  Letter  Office,  where  a  clerk  wasted  a  deal  of  time 
and  ingenuity  in  an  effort  to  trace  the  sender  or  the 
addressee. 

Kedzie  meanwhile  had  watched  fer  the  postman  and 
hunted  through  her  mail  with  frenzy.  There  was  a  vast 
amount  of  mail,  for  it  is  one  of  the  hardships  of  the  movie 
business  that  the  actors  are  fairly  showered  with  letters 
of  praise,  criticism,  query,  and  flirtation. 

But  there  was  no  letter  ever  from  Gilfoyle. 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Yet  Gilfoyle  was  constantly  within  hailing  distance. 
With  the  aid  of  his  friend  Connery  he  had  concocted  a 
scheme  for  keeping  Kedzie  and  Dyckman  under  espionage. 
They  had  speedily  learned  that  Dyckman  was  in  constant 
attendance  on  Kedzie,  and  that  they  were  careless  of  the 
hours  alone,  careless  of  appearances. 

Gilfoyle  never  dreamed  that  the  couple  was  chaperoned 
doubly  by  a  certain  lukewarmth  of  emotion  and  by  an 
ambition  to  become  man  and  wife.  Gilfoyle  imagined 
their  relations  to  be  as  intimate  as  their  opportunities 
permitted.  He  suffered  jealous  wrath,  and  would  have 
assaulted  Dyckman  in  public  if  Connery  had  not  quelled 
him. 

Connery  kept  a  cool  head  in  the  matter  because  his 
heart  was  not  involved.  He  saw  the  wealth  of  Dyckman 
as  the  true  object  of  their  attack,  and  he  convinced 
Gilfoyle  of  the  profitableness  of  a  little  blackmail.  He 
convinced  Gilfoyle  easily  when  they  were  far  from  Kedzie 
and  close  to  poverty;  but  when  they  hovered  near 
Kedzie,  Connery  had  the  convincing  to  do  all  over  again. 

He  worked  up  an  elaborate  campaign  for  gaining  en- 
trance to  Kedzie's  apartment  without  following  the  classic 
method  of  smashing  the  door  down.  He  disliked  that 
noisy  approach  because  it  would  command  notice;  and 
publicity,  as  he  well  knew,  is  death  to  blackmail. 

Connery  adopted  a  familiar  stratagem  of  the  private 
detectives.  He  went  to  the  apartment  one  day  when  he 
knew  that  Kedzie  was  out,  and  inquired  for  an  alleged 
sister  of  his  who  had  worked  for  Kedzie.  He  claimed  to 
be  a  soldier  on  furlough.  He  engaged  the  maid  in  a 
casual  parley  which  he  led  swiftly  to  a  flirtation.  She 
was  a  lonely  maid  and  her  plighted  lover  was  away  on  a 
canal-boat.  Connery  had  little  difficulty  in  winning  her 
to  the  acceptance  of  an  invitation  to  visit  a  movie-show 
on  her  first  evening  off. 

He  paid  the  girl  flattering  attentions,  and  when  he 
brought  her  back,  gallantly  asked  for  the  key  to  unlock 

332 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

the  door  for  her.  He  dropped  the  key  on  the  floor, 
stooped  for  it,  pressed  it  against  a  bit  of  soft  soap  he  had 
in  his  left  palm.  Having  secured  the  outline  of  the  key, 
he  secured  also  a  return  engagement  for  the  next  evening 
off.  On  this  occasion  he  brought  with  him  a  duplicate 
of  the  key,  and  when  he  unlocked  the  door  for  the  maid 
this  time  he  gave  her  the  duplicate  and  kept  the  original. 

And  now  that  he  and  Gilfoyle  had  an  "open  sesame" 
to  the  dovecote  they  grew  imoatient  with  delay.  Gil- 
foyle's  landlady  had  also  grown  impatient  with  delay, 
but  Connery  forced  her  to  wait  for  what  he  called  the 
psychological  moment. 

And  thus  Kedzie  moved  about,  her  life  watched  over 
by  an  invisible  husband  like  a  malignant  Satan  to  whom 
she  had  sold  her  soul. 


CHAPTER    XXX 

JIM  DYCKMAN  had  many  notes  from  Kedzie,  gush- 
ing, all  adjectives  and  adverbs,  capitalized  and  under- 
scored. He  left  them  about  carelessly,  or  locked  them 
up  and  left  the  key.  If  he  had  not  done  that  the  lock 
on  his  desk  was  one  that  could  be  opened  with  a  hair- 
pin or  with  a  penknife  or  with  almost  any  key  of  a  proper 
size. 

There  was  no  one  to  care  except  his  valet.  Dallam 
cared  and  read  and  made  notes.  He  was  horrified  at  the 
thought  of  Dyckman's  marrying  a  movie  actress.  He 
would  have  preferred  any  intrigue  to  that  disgrace.  It 
would  mean  the  loss  of  a  good  position,  too,  for  while 
Dyckman  was  an  easy  boss,  if  he  were  going  to  be  an 
easy  marrier  as  well,  Dallam  had  too  much  self-respect 
to  countenance  a  marriage  beneath  them. 

If  he  could  only  have  known  of  Gilfoyle's  existence  and 
his  quests,  how  the  two  of  them  could  have  collaborated! 

But  Dallam's  interest  in  life  woke  anew  when  one 
evening,  as  he  was  putting  away  the  clothes  Dyckman  had 
thrown  off,  he  searched  his  master's  coat  and  found  a 
letter  from  Mrs.  Cheever. 

DEAR  OLD  JIM, — What's  happent  you?  I  haven't  seen  you 
for  ages.  Couldn't  you  spare  this  evening  to  me?  I'm  alone 
— as  always — and  lonelier  than  usual.  Do  take  pity  on 

Your  devoted 

CHARITY  C. 

That  note,  so  lightly  written  in  seeming,  had  been  torn 
from  a  desperate  heart  and  written  in  tears  and  blood. 
Since  she  had  learned  that  her  husband  really  loved 

334 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Zada  and  that  she  was  going  to  mother  him  a  child, 
Charity  had  been  unable  to  adjust  her  soul  to  the  new 
problem. 

The  Reverend  Doctor  Mosely  had  promised  her  advice, 
but  the  poor  man  could  not  match  his  counsel  with  the 
situation.  He  did  not  believe  in  divorce,  and  yet  he  did 
not  approve  of  illegal  infants.  How  happy  he  could 
have  been  with  either  problem,  with  t'other  away!  In 
his  dilemma  he  simply  avoided  Charity  and  turned  his 
attention  to  the  more  regular  chores  of  his  parish. 

Charity  understood  his  silence,  and  it  served  to  deepen 
her  own  perplexity.  She  was  sure  of  only  one  thing — that 
she  was  caged  and  forgotten. 

Cheever  came  home  less  and  less,  and  he  was  evidently 
so  harrowed  with  his  own  situation  that  Charity  felt 
almost  more  sorry  for  him  than  angry  at  him.  She 
imagined  that  he  must  be  enduring  no  little  from  the 
whims  and  terrors  of  Zada.  He  was  evidently  afraid  to 
speak  to  Charity.  To  ask  for  her  mercy  was  contrary 
to  all  his  nature.  He  never  dreamed  that  the  dictagraph 
had  brought  her  with  him  when  he  learned  of  Zada's 
intensely  interesting  condition,  and  her  exceedingly 
onerous  demands.  He  did  not  dare  ask  Charity  for  a 
divorce  in  order  that  he  might  legitimize  this  byblow  of 
his.  He  could  imagine  only  that  she  would  use  the  in- 
formation for  some  ruinous  vengeance.  So  he  dallied 
with  his  fate  in  dismal  irresolution. 

Charity  had  his  woes  to  bear  as  well  as  hei  own.  She 
knew  that  she  had  lost  him  forever.  The  coquetries  she 
had  used  to  win  him  back  were  impossible  even  to  attempt. 
He  had  no  use  for  her  forgiveness  or  her  charms.  He  was 
a  mere  specter  in  her  home,  doomed  for  his  sins  to  walk 
the  night. 

In  despising  herself  she  rendered  herself  lonelier.  She 
had  not  even  herself  for  companion.  Her  heart  had 
always  been  eager  with  love  and  eager  for  it.  The  spirit 
that  impelled  her  to  endure  hardships  in  order  to  expend 

335 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

her  surplusage  of  love  was  unemployed  now.  She  had 
feasted  upon  love,  and  now  she  starved. 

Cheever  had  been  a  passionate  courtier  and,  while  he 
was  interested,  a  fiery  devotee.  When  he  abandoned  her 
she  suffered  with  the  devastation  that  deserted  wives  and 
recent  widows  endure  but  must  not  speak  of.  It  meant 
terribly  much  to  Charity  Coe  to  be  left  alone.  It  was 
dangerous  to  herself,  her  creeds,  her  ideals. 

She  began  to  be  more  afraid  of  being  alone  than  of  any 
other  fear.  She  grew  resentful  toward  the  conventions 
that  held  her.  She  was  like  a  tigress  in  a  wicker  cage, 
growing  hungrier,  lither,  more  gracefully  fierce. 

People  who  do  not  use  their  beauty  lose  it,  and  Charity 
had  lost  much  of  hers  in  her  vigils  and  labors  in  the 
hospitals,  and  it  had  waned  in  her  humiliations  of  Chee- 
ver's  preference  for  another  woman.  Her  jealous  shame 
at  being  disprized  and  notoriously  neglected  had  given 
her  wanness  and  bitterness,  instead  of  warmth  and 
sweetness. 

But  now  the  wish  to  be  loved  brought  back  loveliness. 
She  did  not  know  how  beautiful  she  was  again.  She 
thought  that  she  wanted  to  see  Jim  Dyckman  merely 
because  she  wanted  to  be  flattered  and  because — as 
women  say  in  such  moods — men  are  so  much  more  sen- 
sible than  women.  Often  they  mean  more  sensitive. 
Charity  did  not  know  that  it  was  love,  not  friendship, 
that  she  required  when  at  last  she  wrote  to  Jim  Dyckman 
and  begged  him  to  call  on  her. 

The  note  struck  him  hard.  It  puzzled  him  by  its  tone. 
And  he,  remembering  how  vainly  he  had  pursued  her, 
forgot  her  disdain  and  recalled  only  how  worthy  of 
pursuit  she  was.  He  hated  himself  for  his  disloyalty  to 
Anita  in  comparing  his  fiancee  with  Charity,  and  he 
cursed  himself  for  finding  Charity  infinitely  Anita's  su- 
perior in  every  way.  But  he  hated  and  cursed  in  vain. 

Kedzie,  or  "Anita,"  as  he  called  her,  was  an  outsider, 
a  pretty  thing  like  a  geisha,  fascinating  by  her  oddity  and 

336 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

her  foreignness,  but,  after  all,  an  alien  who  could  interest 
one  only  temporarily.  There  was  something  transient 
about  Kedzie  in  his  heart,  and  he  had  felt  it  vaguely  the 
moment  he  found  himself  pledged  to  her  forever.  But 
Charity — he  had  loved  her  from  perambulator  days. 
She  was  his  tradition.  His  thoughts  and  desires  had 
always  come  home  to  Charity. 

Yet  he  was  astonished  at  the  sudden  upheaval  of  his 
old  passion.  It  shook  off  the  new  affair  as  a  volcano 
burns  away  the  weeds  that  have  grown  about  its  crater. 
He  supposed  that  Charity  wanted  to  take  up  the  moving- 
picture  scheme  in  earnest,  and  he  repented  the  fact  that 
he  had  gone  to  the  studio  for  information  and  had  come 
away  with  a  flirtation. 

One  thing  was  certain:  he  must  not  fail  to  answer 
Charity's  summons.  He  had  an  engagement  with  Kedzie, 
but  he  called  her  up  and  told  her  the  politest  lie  he  could 
concoct.  Then  he  made  himself  ready  and  put  on  his 
festival  attire. 

Charity  had  grown  sick  of  having  people  say,  "  How  pale 
you  are !"  "You've  lost  flesh,  haven't  you?"  "  Have  you 
been  ill,  dear?" — those  tactless  observations  that  so  many 
people  feel  it  necessary  to  make,  as  if  there  were  no  mirrors 
or  scales  or  symptoms  for  one's  information  and  distress. 

Annoyed  by  these  conversational  harrowers,  Charity 
had  finally  gone  to  her  dressmaker,  Dutilh,  and  asked  him 
to  save  her  from  vegetation!  He  saw  that  she  was  a 
young  woman  in  sore  need  of  a  compliment,  and  he 
flattered  her  lavishly.  He  did  more  for  her  improvement 
in  five  minutes  than  six  doctors,  seventeen  clergymen,  and 
thirty  financiers  could  have  done.  A  compliment  in  time 
is  a  heart-stimulant  with  no  acetanilid  reaction.  Also 
he  told  her  how  wonderful  she  had  been  in  the  past,  re- 
calling by  its  name  and  by  the  name  of  its  French  author 
many  a  gown  she  had  worn,  as  one  would  tell  a  great 
actress  what  rdles  he  had  seen  her  in. 

337 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

He  clothed  her  with  praise  and  encouragement,  threw 
a  mantle  of  crimson  velvet  about  her.  And  she  crim- 
soned with  pride,  and  her  hard,  thin  lips  velveted  with 
beauty. 

She  responded  so  heartily  that  he  was  enabled  to  sell 
her  a  gown  of  very  sumptuous  mode,  its  colors  laid  on  as 
with  the  long  sweeps  of  a  Sargent's  brush.  A  good  deal 
of  flesh  was  not  left  to  the  imagination;  as  in  a  Sargent 
painting,  the  throat,  shoulders,  and  arms  were  part  of 
the  color  scheme.  It  was  a  gown  to  stride  in,  to  stand 
still  in,  in  an  attitude  of  heroic  repose,  or  to  recline  in 
with  a  Parthenonian  grandeur. 

This  gown  did  not  fit  her  perfectly,  just  as  it  came  from 
Paris,  but  it  revealed  its  possibilities  and  restored  her 
shaken  self-confidence  immeasurably.  If  women — or 
their  husbands — could  afford  it,  they  would  find  perhaps 
more  consolation,  restoration,  and  exaltation  at  the  dress- 
makers' than  at — it  would  be  sacrilege  to  say  where. 

By  the  time  Charity's  new  gown  was  ready  for  the  last 
fitting  Charity  had  lost  her  start,  and  when  Dutilh  went 
into  the  room  where  she  had  dressed  he  was  aghast  at 
the  difference.  On  the  first  day  the  gown  had  thrilled 
her  to  a  collaboration  with  it.  Now  she  hardly  stood  up 
in  it.  She  drooped  with  exaggerated  awkwardness, 
shrugged  her  shoulders  with  sarcasm,  and  made  a  face  of 
disgust. 

Dutilh  tried  to  mask  his  disappointment  with  anger. 
When  Charity  groaned,  "Aren't  we  awful — this  dress  and 
I?"  he  retorted:  "You  are,  but  don't  blame  the  gown. 
For  God's  sake,  do  something  for  the  dress.  It  would  do 
wonders  for  you  if  you  would  help  it!"  He  believed  in  a 
golden  rule  for  his  wares:  do  for  your  clothes  what  you 
would  have  them  do  for  you. 

He  threatened  not  to  let  Charity  have  the  gown  at  all 
at  any  price.  He  ordered  her  to  take  it  off.  She  re- 
fused. In  the  excitement  of  the  battle  she  grew  more 
animated.  Then  he  whirled  her  to  a  mirror  and  said: 

338 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Look  like  that,  and  you're  a  made  woman." 

She  was  startled  by  the  vivacity,  the  authority  she 
saw  in  her  features  so  long  dispirited.  She  caught  the 
trick  of  the  expression.  And  actors  know  that  one's 
expression  can  control  one's  moods  almost  as  much  as 
one's  moods  control  one's  expressions. 

So  she  persuaded  Dutilh  to  sell  her  the  dress.  When 
she  got  it  she  did  not  know  just  when  to  wear  it,  for  she 
was  going  out  but  rarely,  and  then  she  did  not  want  to 
be  conspicuous.  She  decided  to  make  Jim  Dyckman's 
call  the  occasion  for  the  launching  of  the  gown.  His 
name  came  up  long  before  she  had  put  it  on  to  be  locked 
in  for  the  evening. 

When  she  thrust  her  arms  forward  like  a  diver  and 
entered  the  gown  by  way  of  the  fourth  dimension  her 
maid  cried  out  with  pride,  and,  standing  with  her  finger- 
tips scattered  over  her  face,  wept  tears  down  to  her 
knuckles.  She  welcomed  the  prodigal  back  to  beauty. 

"Oh,  ma'am,  but  it's  good  to  see  you  lookin'  lovely 
again!" 

While  she  bent  to  the  engagement  of  the  hooks  Chanty 
feasted  on  her  reflection  in  the  cheval-glass.  She  was 
afraid  that  she  was  a  little  too  much  dressed  up  and  a 
little  too  much  undressed.  There  in  Dutilh's  shop,  with 
the  models  and  the  assistants  about,  she  was  but  a  lay 
figure,  a  clothes-horse.  At  the  opera  she  would  have  been 
one  of  a  thousand  shoulder-showing  women.  For  a 
descent  upon  one  poor  caller,  and  a  former  lover  at  that, 
the  costume  frightened  her. 

But  it  was  too  late  to  change,  and  she  caught  up  a 
scarf  of  gossamer  and  twined  it  round  her  neck  to  serve 
as  a  mitigation. 

Hearing  her  footsteps  on  the  stairs  at  last,  Dyckman 
hurried  to  meet  her.  As  she  swept  into  the  room  she 
collided  with  him,  softly,  fragrantly.  They  both  laughed 
nervously,  they  were  both  a  little  influenced. 

She  found  the  drawing-room  too  formal  and  led  him 

339 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

into  the  library.  She  pointed  him  to  a  great  chair  and 
seated  herself  on  the  corner  of  a  leather  divan  nearly  as 
big  as  a  touring-car.  In  the  dark,  hard  frame  she  looked 
richer  than  ever.  He  could  not  help  seeing  how  much 
more  important  she  was  than  his  Anita. 

Anita  was  pretty  and  peachy,  delicious,  kissable,  hug- 
gable,  a  pleasant  armful,  a  lapload  of  girlish  mischief. 
Charity  was  beautiful,  noble,  perilous,  a  woman  to  live 
for,  fight  for,  die  for.  Kedzie  was  to  Charity  as  Rosalind 
to  Isolde. 

It  was  time  for  Jim  to  play  Tristan,  but  he  had  no 
more  blank  verse  in  him  than  a  polo  score-card.  Yet 
the  simple  marks  on  such  a  form  stand  for  tremendous 
energy  and  the  utmost  thrill. 

"Well,  how  are  you,  anyway,  Charity?  How  goes  it 
with  you?"  he  said.  "Gee!  but  you  look  great  to-night. 
What's  the  matter  with  you?  You're  stunning!" 

Charity  laughed  uncannily.  "You're  the  only  one  that 
thinks  so,  Jim." 

"I  always  did  admire  you  more  than  anybody  else 
could;  but,  good  Lord!  everybody  must  have  eyes." 

"I'm  afraid  so,"  said  Charity.  "But  you're  the  only 
one  that  has  imagination  about  me." 

"Bosh!" 

"My  husband  can't  see  me  at  all." 

"Oh,  him!"  Jim  growled.     "What's  he  up  to  now?" 

" I  don't  know,"  said  Charity.  "I  hardly  ever  see  him. 
He's  chucked  me  for  good." 

Jim  studied  her  with  idolatry  and  with  the  intolerant 
ferocity  of  a  priest  for  the  indifferent  or  the  skeptical. 
The  idol  made  her  plaint  to  her  solitary  worshiper. 

"I'm  horribly  lonely,  Jim.  I  don't  go  anywhere,  meet 
anybody,  do  anything  but  mope.  Nobody  comes  to  see 
me  or  take  me  out.  Even  you  kept  away  from  me  till 
I  had  to  send  for  you." 

"You  ordered  me  off  the  premises  in  Newport,  if  you 
remember." 

340 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Yes,  I  did,  but  I  didn't  realize  that  I  was  mistreating 
the  only  admirer  I  had." 

This  was  rather  startling  in  its  possible  implications. 
It  scared  Dyckman.  He  gazed  at  her  until  her  eyes  met 
his.  There  was  something  in  them  that  made  him  look 
away.  Then  he  heard  the  gasp  of  a  little  sob,  and  she 
began  to  cry. 

"Why,  Charity!"  he  said.     "Why,  Charity  Coe!" 

She  smiled  at  the  pet  name  and  the  tenderness  in  his 
voice,  and  her  tears  stopped. 

"Jim,"  she  said,  "I  told  Doctor  Mosely  all  about  my 
affairs,  and  I  simply  spoiled  his  day  for  him  and  he 
dropped  me.  So  I  think  I'll  tell  you." 

"Go  to  the  other  extreme,  eh?"  said  Jim. 

"Yes,  I'm  between  the  devil  and  the  high-Church. 
I've  no  doubt  I'm  to  blame,  but  I  can't  seem  to  stand  the 
punishment  with  no  change  in  sight.  I've  tried  to,  but 
I've  got  to  the  end  of  my  string  and — well — whether  you 
can  help  me  or  not — I've  got  to  talk  or  die.  Do  you  mind 
if  I  run  on?" 

"God  bless  you,  I'd  be  tickled  to  death." 

"It  will  probably  only  ruin  your  evening." 

"Help  yourself.  I'd  rather  have  vou  wreck  all  my 
evenings  than — than — " 

He  had  begun  well,  which  was  more  than  usual.  She 
did  not  expect  him  to  finish.  She  thanked  him  with  a 
look  of  more  than  gratitude. 

"Jim,"  she  said,  "I've  found  out  that  my  husband  is — 
well — there's  a  certain  ex-dancer  named  L'Etoile,  and  he 
— she — they — ' ' 

Instead  of  being  astounded,  Dyckman  was  glum. 

"Oh,  you've  found  that  out  at  last,  have  you?  Maybe 
you'll  learn  before  long  that  there's  trouble  in  France. 
But  of  course  you  know  that.  You  were  over  there. 
Why,  before  you  came  back  he  was  dragging  that  animal 
around  with  him.  I  saw  him  with  her." 

"You  knew  it  as  long  ago  as  that?" 

34i 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Everybody  Knew  it." 

"Why  didn't  you  tell  me?" 

"Because  I'm  a  low-lived  coward,  I  suppose.  I  tried 
to  a  dozen  times,  but  somehow  I  couldn't.  By  gad!  I  came 
near  writing  you  an  anonymous  letter.  I  couldn't  seem 
to  stoop  to  that,  though,  and  I  couldn't  seem  to  rise  to 
telling  you  out  and  out.  And  now  that  you  know,  what 
are  you  going  to  do  about  it?" 

"  That's  what  I  don't  know.  Doctor  Mosely  wanted  me 
to  try  to  get  him  back." 

"  Doctor  Mosely 's  got  softening  of  the  brain.     To  think 
of  your  trying  to  persuade  a  man  to  live  with  you !     You  • 
of  all  people,  and  him  of  all  people!    Agh!     If  you  got  • 
him,  what  would  you  have?     And  how  long  would  you 
keep  him?    You  can't  make  a  household  pet  out  of  a 
laughing  hyena.     Chuck  him,  I  say." 

"But  that  means  the  divorce-court,  Jim." 

"What  of  it?  It's  cleaner  and  sweeter  than  this  ar- 
rangement." 

"But  the  newspapers?" 

"Ah,  what  do  you  care  about  them?  They'd  only 
publish  what  everybody  that  knows  you  knows  already. 
And  what's  the  diff  if  a  lot  of  strangers  find  out  that  ' 
you're  too  decent  to  tolerate  that  man's  behavior?  Some- 
body is  always  roasting  even  the  President,  but  he  gets 
along  somehow.  A  lot  of  good  people  oppose  divorce,  but  I 
was  reading  that  the  best  people  used  to  oppose  anesthetics 
and  education  and  republics.  It's  absolutely  no  argument 
against  a  thing  to  say  that  a  lot  of  the  best  people  think 
it  is  outrageous.  They've  always  fought  everything, 
especially  freedom,  for  the  women.  They  said  it  was 
dangerous  for  you  to  select  your  husbands,  or  manage 
your  property,  or  learn  to  read,  or  go  out  to  work,  or  vote, 
or  be  in  a  profession — or  even  be  a  war  nurse.  The  hatred 
of  divorce  is  all  of  a  piece  with  the  same  old  habit  good 
people  have  of  trying  to  mind  other  people's  business  for 
'em." 

342 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"But  Doctor  Mosely  says  that  marriage  is  a  sacrament." 

"Well,  if  a  marriage  like  yours  is  a  sacrament,  give  me  ' 
a  nice,  decent  white-slave  market." 

"That's  the  way  it  seems  to  me,  but  the  Church, 
especially  our  Church,  is  so  ferocious.  Doctor  Mosely 
preached  a  sermon  against  divorce  and  remarriage,  and 
it  was  frightful  what  he  said  about  women  who  change 
husbands.  I'm  afraid  of  it,  Jim.  I  can't  face  the  abuse 
and  the  newspapers,  and  I  can't  face  the  loneliness,  either. 
I'm  desperately  lonely." 

"For  him?"  Jim  groaned. 

"No,  I've  got  over  loving  him.  I'll  never  endure  him 
again,  especially  now  that  she  has  a  better  right  to  him." 

She  could  not  bring  herself  at  first  to  tell  him  what  she 
knew  of  Zada,  but  at  length  she  confessed  that  she  had 
listened  to  the  dictagraph  and  had  heard  that  Zada  was 
to  be  a  mother.  Dyckman  was  dumfounded;  then  he 
snarled : 

"Thank  God  it's  not  you  that's  going  to  be — for  him — 
Well,  don't  you  call  that  divorce  enough?  How  can  you 
call  your  marriage  a  sacrament  when  he  has  gone  and 
made  a  real  sacrament  with  another  woman?  It  takes 
two  to  keep  a  sacrament,  doesn't  it?  Or  does  it?  I  don't 
think  I  know  what  a  sacrament  is.  But  I  tell  you,  there 
was  never  a  plainer  duty  in  the  world.  Turn  him  over  to 
his  Zada..  She's  the  worst  woman  in  town,  and  she's  too 
good  for  him,  at  that.  I  don't  see  how  you  can  hesitate! 
How  long  can  you  stand  it?" 

"I  don't  know.  I'm  ready  to  die  now.  I'd  rather  die. 
I'd  better  die." 

And  once  more  she  was  weeping,  now  merely  a  lonely 
little  girl.  He  could  not  resist  the  impulse  to  go  to  her 
side.  He  dropped  down  by  her  and  patted  her  wrist 
gawkily.  She  caught  his  hand  and  clenched  it  with 
strange  power.  He  could  tell  by  her  throat  that  her  heart 
was  leaping  like  a  wild  bird  against  a  cage. 

His  own  heart  beat  about  his  breast  like  a  bird  that  has 

343 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

been  set  frantic  by  another  bird,  and  his  soul  ached  for 
her.  He  yearned  to  put  his  long  arm  about  her  and  hold 
her  tight,  but  he  could  not. 

He  had  never  seen  her  so.  He  could  not  understand 
what  it  was  that  made  a  darkling  mist  of  her  eyes  and 
gave  her  parted  lips  such  an  impatient  ecstasy  of  pain. 

Suddenly,  with  an  intuition  unusual  to  him,  he  under- 
stood. He  shrank  from  her,  but  not  with  contempt  or 
blame.  There  was  something  divine  about  his  merciful 
comprehension,  but  his  only  human  response  was  a  most 
ungodly  wrath.  He  got  to  his  feet,  muttering: 

"I  ought  to  kill  him.  Maybe  I  will.  I've  got  to  beat 
him  within  an  inch  of  his  life." 

Charity  was  dazed  by  his  abrupt  revolt.  "What  do 
you  mean,  Jim?  Who  is  it  you  want  to  beat?" 

He  laughed,  a  bloodthirsty  laugh.     "I'll  find  him!" 

He  rushed  out  into  the  hall,  caught  up  his  hat  and  coat, 
and  was  gone.  Charity  was  bewildered  out  of  her  wits. 
She  could  not  imagine  what  had  maddened  him.  She 
only  knew  that  Dyckman  also  had  abandoned  her.  He 
would  find  Cheever  and  fight  him  as  one  stag  another. 
And  the  only  result  would  be  the  death  of  one  or  both  and 
a  far  more  odious  disgrace  than  the  scandal  she  had  de- 
termined to  avoid. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

DYCKMAN  was  at  least  half  mad,  and  half  inspired. 
Charity  had  been  his  lifelong  religion.  He  had 
thought  of  her  with  ardor,  but  also  with  a  kind  of  awe. 
He  had  wanted  to  be  her  husband.  Failing  to  win  her, 
he  had  been  horrified  to  see  that  Cheever,  possessing  her, 
was  still  not  satisfied. 

He  had  never  dreamed  what  this  neglect  might  mean  to 
her.  He  had  not  thought  of  her  as  mere  woman,  after 
all,  with  more  than  pride  to  satisfy,  with  more  than  a  mind 
to  suffer.  When  the  realization  overwhelmed  him  her 
nobility  was  not  diminished  in  his  eyes,  but  to  all  her 
former  qualities  was  added  the  human  element.  She  was 
flesh  and  blood,  and  a  martyr  in  the  flames.  And  the 
ingrate  who  had  the  godlike  privilege  of  her  embrace 
abandoned  her  for  a  public  creature. 

Dyckman  felt  himself  summoned  to  avenge  her. 

It  happened  that  he  found  the  Cheever  limousine  wait- 
ing outside.  He  said  to  the  chauffeur: 

"Where  does  Miss  Zada  L'Etoile  live?" 

The  chauffeur  was  startled.  He  answered,  with  a 
touch  of  raillery: 

"  Search  me,  sir.     How  should  I  know?" 

"I  want  none  of  your  back  talk,"  said  Dyckman,  ready 
to  maul  the  chauffeur  or  anybody  for  practice.  He  took 
out  his  pocket-book  and  lifted  the  first  bill  he  came  to. 
It  was  a  yellow  boy.  He  repeated,  "Where  does  Zada 
L'Etoile  live?" 

The  chauffeur  told  him  and  got  the  bill.  It  was  better 
than  the  poke  in  the  eye  he  could  have  had  instead. 

345 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Dyckman  had  sent  his  own  car  home.  He  had  difficulty 
in  finding  a  taxicab  on  Fifth  Avenue  along  there.  At 
length  he  stopped  one  and  named  the  apartment-house 
where  Zada  lived. 

The  hall-boy  was  startled  by  his  manner,  amazed  to 
hear  the  famous  Dyckman  ask  for  Miss  L'Etoile.  He 
telephoned  the  name  while  Dyckman  fumed.  After  some 
delay  he  was  told  to  come  up. 

Zada  was  alone — at  least  Cheever  was  not  there.  She 
had  been  astounded  when  Dyckman's  name  came  through 
the  telephone.  Her  first  thought  had  been  that  Cheever 
had  met  with  an  accident  and  that  Dyckman  was  bringing 
the  news.  She  had  given  up  the  hope  of  involving 
Dyckman  with  Mrs.  Cheever,  after  wasting  Cheever's 
money  on  vain  detectives. 

When  Dyckman  was  ushered  in  she  greeted  him  from 
her  divan. 

"Pardon  my  negligee,"  she  said.  "I'm  not  very 
well." 

He  saw  at  a  glance  that  the  dictagraph  had  told  the 
truth.  She  was  entirely  too  well.  He  felt  his  wrath  at 
Zada  vanishing.  But  this  also  he  transferred  to  Cheever's 
account.  He  spoke  as  quietly  as  he  could,  though  his  face 
revealed  his  excitement. 

"Sorry  to  trouble  you,  but  I  had  hoped  to  find  Mr. 
Cheever  here." 

"Mr.  Cheever?!  Here?!"  Zada  exclaimed,  with  that 
mixture  of  the  interrogation  and  exclamation  points  for 
which  we  have  no  symbol.  She  tried  to  look  surprised 
at  the  unimaginable  suggestion  of  Cheever's  being  in  her 
environs.  She  succeeded  as  well  as  Dyckman  did  in  pre- 
tending that  his  errand  was  trivial. 

"Er — yes,  I  imagined  you  might  happen  to  know  where 
I  could  find  him.  I  have  a  little  business  with  him." 

Zada  thought  to  crush  him  with  a  condescension — a 
manicurial  sarcasm: 

"Have  you  been  to  the  gentleman's  home?" 
346 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Dyckman  laughed:  "Yes,  but  he  wasn't  there.  He 
isn't  there  much  nowadays — they  say." 

"Oh,  do  they?"  Zada  sneered.  "Well,  did  They  tell 
you  he  would  be  here?" 

"No,  but  I  thought—" 

"Better  try  his  office  in  the  morning.' 

"Thanks.  I  can't  wait.  What  club  does  he  affect 
most  now?" 

"Ask  They,"  said  Zada,  ending  the  interview  with  a 
labored  yawn.  But  when  Dyckman  bowed  and  turned  to 
go,  her  curiosity  bested  her  indignation.  "In  case  I 
should  by  any  chance  see  him,  could  I  give  him  your 
message?" 

Dyckman  laughed  a  sort  of  pugilistic  laugh,  and  his 
self-conscious  fist  asserted  itself. 

"No,  thanks,  I'm  afraid  you  couldn't.     Good-by." 

Zada  saw  his  big  fingers  gathering — convening,  as  it 
were,  into  a  fist  like  a  mace,  and  she  was  terrified  for  her 
man.  She  scrambled  to  her  feet  and  caught  Dyckman  in 
the  hall. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  to  Mr.  Cheever?" 

Dyckman  answered  in  the  ironic  slang,  "I'm  not  going 
to  do  a  thing  to  him." 

Zada's  terror  increased.  "What  harm  has  he  ever  done 
to  you?" 

"I  didn't  say  he  had  done  me  any  harm." 

"Is  it  because  of  his  wife?" 

"Leave  her  out  of  it." 

There  was  the  old  phrase  again.  Cheever  kept  hurling 
it  at  her  whenever  she  referred  to  the  third  corner  of  the 
triangle. 

Zada  remembered  when  Cheever  had  threatened  to  kill 
Dyckman  if  he  found  him.  Now  he  would  be  unarmed. 
He  was  not  so  big  a  man  as  Dyckman.  She  could  see  him 
being  throttled  slowly  to  death,  leaving  her  and  her 
child-to-be  unprotected  in  their  shameful  folly. 

"For  God's  sake,  don't!"  she  implored  him.  "I'm  not 

347 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

well.  I  mustn't  have  any  excitement.  I  beg  you — for 
my  sake — " 

"For  your  sake,"  said  Dyckman,  with  a  scorn  that 
changed  to  pity  as  she  clung  to  him — "for  your  sake 
I'll  give  him  a  couple  of  extra  jolts." 

That  was  rather  dazzling,  the  compliment  of  having 
Jim  Dyckman  as  her  champion!  Her  old  habit  of  taking 
everybody's  flattery  made  her  forget  for  the  moment  that 
she  was  now  a  one-man  woman.  Her  clutch  relaxed 
under  the  compliment  just  long  enough  for  Dyckman  to 
escape  without  violence.  He  darted  through  the  door 
and  closed  it  behind  him. 

She  tugged  at  the  inside  knob,  but  he  was  so  long  that 
he  could  hold  the  outside  knob  with  one  hand  and  reach 
the  elevator-bell  with  the  other. 

When  the  car  came  up  he  released  the  knob  and  lifted 
his  hat  with  a  pleasant  "Good-night."  She  dared  not 
pursue  him  in  the  garb  she  wore. 

She  returned  terrified  to  her  room.  Then  she  ran  to 
the  telephone  to  pursue  Cheever  and  warn  him.  They 
had  quarreled  at  the  dinner-table.  He  had  left  her  on 
the  ground  that  it  was  dangerous  for  her  to  be  excited  as 
he  evidently  excited  her.  It  is  one  of  the  most  craven 
shifts  of  a  man  for  ending  an  endless  wrangle  with  a 
woman. 

Zada  tried  three  clubs  before  she  found  Cheever. 
When  she  heard  his  voice  at  last  she  was  enraptured. 
She  tried  to  entice  him  into  her  own  shelter. 

"I'm  sorry  I  was  so  mean.  Come  on  home  and  make 
peace  with  me." 

"All  right,  dear,  I  will." 

"Right  away?" 

"After  a  while,  darling.  I'm  sitting  in  a  little  game  of 
poker." 

"  You'd  better  not  keep  me  waiting !"  she  warned.  The 
note  was  an  unfortunate  reminder  of  his  bondage.  It 
rattled  his  shackles.  He  could  not  even  have  a  few  hours 

348 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

with  old  cronies  at  the  club.  She  was  worse  than  Charity 
had  ever  dreamed  of  being.  She  heard  the  resentment  in 
his  answer  and  felt  that  he  would  stay  away  from  her 
for  discipline.  She  threw  aside  diplomacy  and  tried  to 
frighten  him  home. 

"Jim  Dyckman  is  looking  for  you." 

"Dyckman?     Me!    Why?"  ' 

"He  wants  to  beat  you  up." 

Cheever  laughed  outright  at  this.  "You're  crazy, 
darling.  What  has  Dyckman  got  against  me?" 

"I  don't  know,  but  I  know  he's  hunting  you." 

"I  haven't  laid  eyes  on  him  for  weeks.  We've  had  no 
quarrel." 

Zada  was  frantic.  She  howled  across  the  wire :  "Come 
home,  I  beg  and  implore  you.  He'll  hurt  you — he  may 
kill  you." 

Again  Cheever  laughed :  "You're  having  hallucinations, 
my  love.  You'll  feel  better  in  the  morning.  Where  the 
deuce  did  you  get  such  a  foolish  notion,  anyway?" 

"From  Jim  Dyckman,"  she  stormed.  "He  was  here 
looking  for  you.  If  anybody's  going  crazy,  he's  the  one. 
I  had  a  struggle  with  him.  He  broke  away.  I  begged 
him  not  to  harm  you,  but  he  said  he'd  give  you  a  few 
extra  jolts  for  my  sake.  Please,  please,  don't  let  him  find 
you  there." 

Cheever  was  half  convinced  and  quite  puzzled.  He 
knew  that  Dyckman  had  never  forgiven  him  for  marrying 
Charity.  The  feud  had  smoldered.  He  could  not  con- 
ceive what  should  have  revived  it,  unless  Charity  had  been 
talking.  He  had  not  thought  of  any  one's  punishing  him 
for  neglecting  her.  But  if  Dyckman  had  enlisted  in  her 
cause — well,  Cheever  was  afraid  of  hardly  anything  in  the 
world  except  boredom  and  the  appearance  of  fear.  He , 
answered  Zada  with  a  gruff : 

"Let  him  find  me  if  he  wants  to.  Or  since  you  know 
him  so  well,  tell  me  where  he'll  be,  and  I'll  go  find  him." 

He  could  hear  Zada's  strangled  moan.     How  many 

349 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

times,  since  male  and  female  began,  have  women  made 
wild,  vain  protests  against  the  battle-habit,  the  duel- 
tribunal?  Mothers,  daughters,  wives,  mistresses,  they 
have  been  seldom  heard  and  have  been  forced  to  wait 
remote  in  anguish  till  their  man  has  come  back  or  been 
brought  back,  victorious  or  baffled  or  defeated,  maimed, 
wounded,  or  dead. 

It  meant  everything  to  Zada  that  her  mate  should  not 
suffer  either  death  or  publicity.  But  chiefly  her  love  of 
him  made  outcry  now.  She  could  not  endure  the  vision  of 
her  beloved  receiving  the  hammering  of  the  giant  Dyck- 
man. 

The  telephone  crackled  under  the  load  of  her  prayers, 
but  Cheever  had  only  one  answer: 

"If  you  want  me  to  run  away  from  him  or  anybody, 
you  don't  get  your  wish,  my  darling." 

Finally  she  shrieked,  "If  you  don't  come  home  I'll 
come  there  and  get  you." 

"Ladies  are  not  allowed  in  the  main  part  of  this  club, 
dearest,"  said  Cheever.  "Thank  God  there  are  a  few 
places  where  two  men  can  settle  their  affairs  without  the 
help  of  womanly  intuition." 

"He  wants  to  pound  you  to  death,"  she  screamed. 
"  If  you  don't  promise  me,  I'll  come  there  and  break  in  if 
I  have  to  scratch  the  eyes  out  of  the  doorkeeper." 

He  knew  that  she  was  capable  of  doing  this  very  thing ; 
so  he  made  answer,  "All  right,  my  dear.  I  surrender." 

"You'll  come  home?" 

"Yes,  indeed.     Right  away." 

"Oh,  thank  God!  You  do  love  me,  then.  How  soon 
will  you  be  here?" 

"Very  shortly,  unless  the  taxi  breaks  down." 

"Hurry!" 

"Surely.     Good-by!" 

He  hung  up  the  reverberant  receiver  and  said  to  the 
telephone-boy:  "If  anybody  calls  me,  I've  gone  out. 
No  matter  who  calls  me,  I'm  out." 

35° 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Yes,  sir." 

Then  he  went  to  the  card-room,  found  that  the  game 
had  gone  on  without  him,  cashed  in  his  chips,  and  ex- 
cused himself.  He  was  neither  winning  nor  losing,  so 
that  he  could  not  be  accused  of  "cold  feet."  That  was 
one  of  the  most  intolerable  accusations  to  him.  He  could 
violate  any  of  the  Commandments,  but  in  the  sportsman's 
decalogue  "Thou  shalt  not  have  cold  feet"  was  one  that 
he  honored  in  the  observance,  not  the  breach. 

He  went  down  to  the  reading-room,  a  palatial  hall 
fifty  yards  long  with  a  table  nearly  as  big  as  a  railroad 
platform,  on  a  tremendous  rug  as  wide  and  deep  as  a  lawn. 
About  it  were  chairs  and  divans  that  would  have  satisfied 
a  lotus-eater. 

Cheever  avoided  proffers  of  conversation  and  pretended 
to  read  the  magazines  and  newspapers.  He  kept  his  eyes 
on  the  doors.  He  did  not  want  to  take  any  one  into  his 
confidence,  as  he  felt  that,  after  all,  Zada  might  have  been 
out  of  her  head.  He  did  not  want  any  seconds  or  bottle- 
holders.  He  was  not  afraid.  Still,  he  did  not  care  to  be 
surprised  by  a  mad  bull.  He  felt  that  he  could  play  tore- 
ador with  neatness  and  despatch  provided  he  could  fore- 
see the  charge. 

Among  the  magazines  Cheever  glanced  at  was  one  with 
an  article  on  various  modes  of  self-defense,  jiu-jitsu,  and 
other  devices  by  which  any  clever  child  could  apparently 
remove  or  disable  a  mad  elephant.  But  Cheever's 
traditions  did  not  incline  to  such  methods.  He  had  the 
fisting  habit.  He  did  not  feel  called  toward  clinching  or 
choking,  twisting,  tripping,  knifing,  swording,  or  sand- 
bagging. His  wrath  expressed  itself,  and  gaily,  in  the 
play  of  the  triceps  muscle.  For  mobility  he  used  foot- 
work and  headwork.  For  shield  he  had  his  forearms  or 
his  open  hands — for  weapons,  the  ten  knuckles  at  the 
other  end  of  the  exquisite  driving-shafts  beginning  in  his 
shoulder-blades. 

He  had  been  a  clever  fighter  from  childhood.     He  had 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

been  a  successful  boxer  and  had  followed  the  art  in  its 
professional  and  amateur  developments.  He  knew  more 
of  prize-ring  history  and  politics  than  of  any  other.  He 
often  regretted  that  his  inherited  money  had  robbed  him 
of  a  career  as  a  heavy-weight.  He  was  not  so  big  as 
Dyckman,  but  he  had  made  fools  of  bigger  men.  He  felt 
that  the  odds  were  a  trifle  in  his  favor,  especially  if 
Dyckman  were  angry,  as  he  must  be  to  go  roaring  about 
town  frightening  one  silly  woman  for  another's  sake. 

He  would  have  preferred  not  to  fight  in  the  club.  It 
was  the  best  of  all  possible  clubs,  and  he  supposed  that  he 
would  be  expelled  for  profaning  its  sacrosanctity  with  a 
vulgar  brawl.  But  anything  was  better  than  cold  feet. 

Finally  his  hundredth  glance  at  the  door  revealed  Jim 
Dyckman.  He  was  a  long  way  off,  but  he  looked  bigger 
than  Cheever  remembered  him.  Also  he  was  calmer  than 
Cheever  had  hoped  him  to  be,  and  not  drunk,  as  he  half 
expected. 

Dyckman  caught  sight  of  Cheever,  glared  a  moment, 
tossed  his  head  as  if  it  had  antlers  on  it,  and  came  forward 
grimly  and  swiftly. 

A  few  members  of  the  club  spoke  to  him.  An  attendant 
or  two,  carrying  cocktails  or  high-balls  in  or  empty  glasses 
out,  stepped  aside. 

Dyckman  advanced  down  the  room,  and  his  manner 
was  challenge  enough.  But  he  paused  honorably  to  say, 
"Cheever,  I'm  looking  for  you." 

"So  I  hear." 

"You  had  fair  warning,  then,  from  your — woman?" 

"Which  one?"  said  Cheever,  with  his  irresistible  im- 
pudence. 

That  was  the  fulminate  that  exploded  Dyckman 's 
wrath.  "You  blackguard!"  he  roared,  and  plunged.  His 
left  hand  was  out  and  open,  his  great  right  fist  back.  As 
he  closed,  it  flashed  past  him  and  drove  into  the  spot 
where  Cheever 's  face  was  smirking. 

But  the  face  was  gone.  Cheever  had  bent  his  neck  just 
352 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

enough  to  escape  the  fist.  He  met  the  weight  of  Dyck- 
man's  rush  with  all  his  own  weight  in  a  short-arm  jab 
that  rocked  Dyckman's  whole  frame  and  crumpled  the 
white  cuirass  of  his  shirt. 

The  fight  was  within  an  ace  of  being  ended  then  and 
there,  but  Dyckman's  belly  was  covered  with  sinew,  and 
he  digested  the  bitter  medicine.  He  tried  to  turn  his 
huge  grunt  into  a  laugh.  He  was  at  least  not  to  be  guilty 
of  assaulting  a  weakling. 

Dyckman  was  a  bit  of  a  boxer,  too.  Like  most  rich 
men's  sons,  he  was  practised  in  athletics.  The  gentleman 
of  our  day  carries  no  sword  and  no  revolver;  he  carries 
his  weapons  in  his  gloves. 

Dyckman  acknowledged  Cheever's  skill  and  courage 
by  deploying  and  falling  back.  He  sparred  a  moment. 
He  saw  that  Cheever  was  quicker  than  he  at  the  feint 
and  the  sidestep. 

He  grew  impatient  at  this  dancing  duet.  His  wrath 
was-  his  worst  enemy  and  Cheever's  ally.  Cheever 
taunted  him,  and  he  heard  the  voices  of  the  club  members 
who  were  rushing  from  their  chairs  in  consternation,  and 
running  in  from  the  other  rooms,  summoned  by  the  wire- 
less excitement  that  announces  fights. 

There  was  not  going  to  be  time  for  a  bout,  and  the 
gallery  was  bigger  than  Dyckman  had  expected.  He  went 
in  hell-for-leather.  He  felt  a  mighty  satisfaction  when 
his  good  left  hand  slashed  through  Cheever's  ineffectual 
palms,  reached  that  perky  little  mustache  and  smeared 
that  amiable  mouth  with  blood. 

In  the  counterblow  the  edge  of  Cheever's  cuff  caught 
on  Dyckman's  knuckles  and  ripped  the  skin.  This  saved 
Dyckman's  eye  from  mourning.  And  now  wherever  he 
struck  he  left  a  red  mark.  It  helped  his  target-practice. 

Cheever  gave  up  trying  to  mar  Dyckman's  face  and 
went  for  his  waistcoat.  All  is  fair  in  such  a  war,  and 
below  the  belt  was  his  favorite  territory.  He  hoped  to 
put  Dyckman  out.  Dyckman  tried  to  withhold  his  vul- 

23  353 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

nerable  solar  plexus  by  crouching,  but  Cheever  kept 
whizzing  through  his  guard  like  a  blazing  pinwheel  even 
when  it  brought  his  jaw  in  reach  of  an  uppercut. 

Dyckman  clinched  and  tried  to  bear  him  down,  but 
Cheever,  reaching  round  him,  battered  him  with  the 
terrific  kidney-blow,  and  Dyckman  flung  him  off. 

And  now  servants  came  leaping  into  the  fray,  venturing 
to  lay  hands  on  the  men.  They  could  hear  older  members 
pleading:  "Gentlemen!  Gentlemen!  For  God's  sake 
remember  where  you  are."  One  or  two  went  calling, 
"House  Committee!" 

Such  blows  as  were  struck  now  were  struck  across  other 
heads  and  in  spite  of  other  arms.  Both  men  were  seized 
at  length  and  dragged  away,  petted  and  talked  to  like 
infuriated  stallions.  They  stood  panting  and  bleeding, 
trying  not  to  hear  the  voices  of  reason.  They  glared  at 
each  other,  and  it  became  unendurable  to  each  that  the 
other  should  be  able  to  stand  erect  and  mock  him. 

As  if  by  a  signal  agreed  on,  they  wrenched  and  flung 
aside  their  captors  and  dashed  together  again,  forgetting 
science,  defense,  caution,  everything  but  the  lust  of 
carnage.  Dyckman  in  freeing  himself  left  his  coat  in  the 
grasp  of  his  retainers. 

There  is  nothing  more  sickeningly  thrilling  than  the 
bare-handed  ferocity  of  two  big  men,  all  hate  and  stupid 
power,  smashing  and  being  smashed,  trying  to  defend 
and  destroy  and  each  longing  to  knock  the  other  lifeless 
before  his  own  heart  is  stopped.  It  seemed  a  pity  to 
interrupt  it,  and  it  was  perilous  as  well. 

For  a  long  moment  the  two  men  flailed  each  other,  bored 
in,  and  staggered  out. 

It  was  thud  and  thwack,  slash  and  gouge.  Wild  blows 
went  through  the  air  like  broadswords,  making  the  specta- 
tors groan  at  what  they  might  have  done  had  they  landed. 
Blows  landed  and  sent  a  head  back  with  such  a  snap  that 
one  looked  for  it  on  the  floor.  Flesh  split,  and  blood 
spurted.  Cheever  reached  up  and  swept  his  nose  and 

354 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

mouth  clear  of  gore — then  shot  his  reeking  fist  into 
Dyckman's  heart  as  if  he  would  drive  it  through. 

It  was  amazing  to  see  Dyckman's  answering  swing 
batter  Cheever  forward  to  one  knee.  Habit  and  not 
courtesy  kept  Dyckman  from  jumping  him.  He  stood 
off  for  Cheever  to  regain  his  feet.  It  was  not  necessary, 
for  Cheever's  agility  had  carried  him  out  of  range,  but  the 
tolerance  maddened  him  more  than  anything  yet,  and 
he  ceased  to  duck  and  dodge.  He  stood  in  and  battered 
at  Dyckman's  stomach  till  a  gray  nausea  began  to 
weaken  his  enemy.  Dyckman  grew  afraid  of  a  sudden 
blotting  out  of  consciousness.  He  had  known  it  once 
when  the  chance  blow  of  an  instructor  had  stretched  him 
flat  for  thirty  seconds. 

He  could  not  keep  Cheever  off  far  enough  to  use  his 
longer  reach.  He  forgot  everything  but  the  determination 
to  make  ruins  of  that  handsome  face  before  he  went  out. 
He  knocked  loose  one  tooth  and  bleared  an  eye,  but  it 
was  not  enough.  Finally  Cheever  got  to  him  with  a 
sledge-hammer  smash  in  the  groin.  It  hurled  Dyckman 
against  and  along  the  big  table,  just  as  he  put  home  one 
magnificent,  majestic,  mellifluous  swinge  with  all  his  body 
in  it.  It  planted  an  earthquake  under  Cheever's  ear. 

Dyckman  saw  him  go  backward  across  a  chair  and 
spinning  over  it  and  with  it  and  under  it  to  the  floor. 
Then  he  had  only  the  faintness  and  the  vomiting  to  fight. 
He  made  one  groping,  clutching,  almighty  effort  to  stand 
up  long  enough  to  crow  like  a  victorious  fighting  cock, 
and  he  did.  He  stood  up.  He  held  to  the  table;  he 
did  not  drop.  And  he  said  one  triumphant,  "Humph!" 

And  now  the  storm  of  indignation  began.  Dyckman 
was  a  spent  and  bankrupt  object,  and  anybody  could 
berate  him.  A  member  of  the  house  committee  reviled 
him  with  profanity  and  took  the  names  of  witnesses  who 
could  testify  that  Dyckman  struck  the  first  blow. 

The  pitiful  stillness  of  Cheever,  where  a  few  men  knelt 
about  him,  turned  the  favor  to  him.  One  little  whiffet 

355 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

told  Dyckman  to  his  face  that  it  was  a  dastardly  thing 
he  had  done.  He  laughed.  He  had  his  enemy  on  the 
floor.  He  did  not  want  everything. 

Dyckman  made  no  answer  to  the  accusations.  He  did 
not  say  that  he  was  a  crusader  punishing  an  infidel  for  his 
treachery  to  a  poor,  neglected  woman.  He  had  almost 
forgotten  what  he  was  fighting  for.  He  was  too  weak 
even  to  oppose  the  vague  advice  he  heard  that  Cheever 
should  be  taken  "home."  He  had  a  sardonic  impulse  to 
give  Zada's  address,  but  he  could  not  master  his  be- 
fuddled wits  enough  for  speech. 

The  little  fussy  rooster  who  called  Dyckman  dastardly 
said  that  he  ought  to  be  arrested.  The  reception  he  got 
for  his  proposal  to  bring  a  policeman  into  the  club  or  take 
a  member  out  of  it  into  the  jail  and  the  newspapers  was 
almost  annihilating.  The  chairman  of  the  house  com- 
mittee said: 

"  I  trust  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  say  that  this  wretched 
and  most  unheard-of  affair  must  be  kept — unheard  of. 
But  I  may  say  that  I  have  here  a  list  of  the  members 
present,  and  I  shall  make  a  list  of  the  club  servants  pres- 
ent. If  one  word  of  this  leaks  out,  each  gentleman  present 
will  be  brought  before  the  council,  and  every  servant 
will  be  discharged  immediately — every  servant  without 
regard  to  guilt,  innocence,  or  time  of  service." 

Dyckman  would  have  liked  to  spend  the  night  at  the 
club,  but  its  hospitable  air  had  chilled.  He  sent  for  his 
big  coat,  turned  up  the  collar,  pulled  his  hat  low,  and 
crept  into  a  taxicab.  His  father  and  mother  were  out, 
and  he  got  to  his  room  without  explanations.  His  valet, 
Dallam,  gasped  at  the  sight  of  him,  but  Dyckman  laughed : 

"You  ought  to  see  the  other  fellow." 

Then  he  crept  into  the  tub,  thence  into  his  bed,  and 
slept  till  he  was  called  to  the  telephone  the  next  morning 
by  Mrs.  Cheever. 

As  he  might  have  expected,  Charity  was  as  far  as  pos- 
356 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

sible  from  gratitude.  The  only  good  news  she  gave  him 
was  that  Cheever  had  been  brought  home  half  dead, 
terribly  mauled,  broken  in  pride,  and  weeping  like  a  baby 
with  his  shame.  Dyckman  could  not  help  swelling  a 
little  at  that. 

But  when  Charity  told  him  that  Cheever  accused  her 
of  setting  him  on  and  swore  that  he  would  get  even  with 
them  both,  Dyckman  realized  that  fists  are  poor  poultices 
for  bruises,  and  revenge  the  worst  of  all  solutions.  Finally, 
Charity  denounced  Jim  and  begged  him  once  more  to 
keep  out  of  her  sight  and  out  of  her  life. 

Dyckman  was  in  the  depths  of  the  blues,  and  a  note 
to  the  effect  that  he  had  been  suspended  from  his  club, 
to  await  action  looking  toward  his  expulsion,  left  him 
quite  alone  in  the  world. 

In  such  a  mood  Kedzie  Thropp  called  him  up,  with  a 
cheery  hail  that  rejoiced  him  like  the  first  cheep  of  the 
first  robin  after  a  miserable  winter.  He  said  that  he 
would  call  that  evening,  with  the  greatest  possible  delight. 
She  said  that  she  was  very  lonely  for  him,  and  they  should 
have  a  blissful  evening  with  just  themselves  together. 

But  it  proved  to  be  a  rather  crowded  occasion  in 
Kedzie's  apartment.  Her  father  and  mother  reached 
there  before  Dyckman  did,  to  Kedzie's  horror — and  theirs. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

TURN  a  parable  upside  down,  and  nearly  everything 
falls  out  of  it. 

Even  the  beautiful  legend  of  the  prodigal  son  return- 
ing home  to  his  parents  could  not  retain  its  value  when  it 
was  topsy-turvied  by  the  Thropps. 

Their  son  was  a  daughter,  but  she  had  run  away  from 
them  to  batten  on  the  husks  of  city  life,  and  had  pros- 
pered exceedingly.  It  was  her  parents  who  heard  of  her 
fame  and  had  journeyed  to  the  city  to  ask  her  forgiveness 
and  throw  themselves  on  her  neck.  Kedzie  was  now 
wonderful  before  the  nation  under  the  nom  de  film  of 
Anita  Adair;  but  if  her  father  had  not  spanked  her  that 
fatal  day  in  New  York  she  might  never  have  known 
glory.  So  many  people  have  been  kicked  up-stairs  in 
this  world. 

But  Kedzie  had  not  forgiven  the  outrage,  and  her 
father  had  no  intention  of  reminding  her  how  much  she 
owed  to  it.  In  fact,  he  wished  he  had  thought  to  cut 
off  his  right  hand,  scripturally,  before  it  caused  him  to 
offend. 

When  the  moving-picture  patrons  in  Nimrim,  Missouri, 
first  saw  Kedzie' s  pictures  on  the  screen  they  were  thrilled 
far  beyond  the  intended  effect  of  the  thriller.  The  name 
"Anita  Adair"  had  meant  nothing,  of  course,  among  her 
old  neighbors,  but  everybody  had  known  Kedzie's  ways 
ever  since  first  she  had  had  ways.  Her  image  had  no 
sooner  walked  into  her  first  scene  than  fellows  who  had 
kissed  her,  and  girls  who  had  been  jealous  of  her,  began 
to  buzz. 

358 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Look,  that's  Kedzie." 

"For  mercy's  sake,  Kedzie  Thropp!" 

"Yep,  that's  old  Throppie." 

"Why — would  you  believe  it? — that's  old  Ad  Thropp's 
girl — the  one  what  was  lost  so  long." 

In  the  Nimrim  Nickeleum  films  were  played  twice  of  an 
evening.  The  seven-thirty  audience  was  usually  willing 
to  go  home  and  leave  space  for  the  nine-o'clock  audience 
unless  the  night  was  cold.  But  on  this  immortal  evening 
people  were  torn  between  a  frenzy  to  watch  Kedzie  go  by 
again  and  a  frenzy  to  run  and  get  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thropp. 

A  veritable  Greek  chorus  ran  and  got  the  Thropps,  and 
lost  their  seats.  There  was  no  room  for  the  Thropps  to 
get  in.  If  the  manager  had  not  thrown  out  a  few  children 
and  squeezed  the  parents'  through  the  crowd  they  would 
have  lost  the  view. 

The  old  people  stood  in  the  narrow  aisle  staring  at  the 
apotheosis  of  this  brilliant  creature  in  whose  existence  they 
had  collaborated.  They  had  the  mythological  experience 
of  two  old  peasants  seeing  their  child  translated  as  in  a 
chariot  of  fire.  Their  eyes  were  dazzled  with  tears,  for 
they  had  mourned  her  as  lost,  either  dead  in  body  or  dead 
of  soul.  They  had  imagined  her  drowned  and  floating 
down  the  Bay,  or  floating  along  the  sidewalks  of  New 
York.  They  had  feared  for  her  the  much-advertised  fate 
of  the  white  slaves — she  might  be  bound  out  to  Singapore 
or  destined  for  Alaskan  dance-halls.  There  are  so  many 
fates  for  parents  to  dread  for  their  lost  children. 

To  have  their  Kedzie  float  home  to  them  on  pinions 
of  radiant  beauty  was  an  almost  intolerable  beatitude. 
Kedzie's  mother  started  down  the  aisle,  crying,  "Kedzie, 
my  baby!  My  little  lost  baby!"  before  Adna  could 
check  her. 

Kedzie  did  not  answer  her  mother,  but  went  on  with 
her  work  as  if  she  were  deaf.  She  came  streaming  from 
the  projection-machine  in  long  beams  of  light.  This 
vivid,  smiling,  weeping,  dancing,  sobbing  Kedzie  was  only 

359 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

a  vibration  rebounding  from  a  screen.     Perhaps  that  is  all 
any  of  us  are. 

One  thing  was  certain:  the  Thropps  determined  to  re- 
deem their  lost  lamb  as  soon  as  they  could  get  to  New 
York.  Their  lost  lamb  was  gamboling  in  blessed  pastures. 
The  Nirnrim  people  spoke  to  the  parents  with  reverence, 
as  if  their  son  had  been  elected  President — which  would 
not  have  been,  after  all,  so  wonderful  as  their  daughter's 
being  a  screen  queen. 

There  is  no  end  to  the  astonishments  of  our  every-day 
life.  While  the  Thropps  had  been  watching  their  daugh- 
ter disport  before  them  in  a  little  dark  room  in  Missouri, 
and  other  people  in  numbers  of  other  cities  were  seeing  her 
in  duplicate,  she  herself  was  in  none  of  the  places,  but 
in  her  own  room  —  with  Jim  Dyckman  paying  court 
to  her. 

Kedzie  was  engaged  in  reeling  off  a  new  life  of  her  own 
for  the  astonishment  of  the  angels,  or  whatever  audience 
it  is  for  whose  amusement  the  eternal  movie  show  of 
mankind  is  performed.  Kedzie 's  story  was  progressing 
with  cinematographic  speed  and  with  transitions  almost 
as  abrupt  as  the  typical  five-reeler. 

Kedzie  was  an  anxious  spectator  as  well  as  an  actor  in 
her  own  life  film.  She  did  not  see  how  she  could  get  out 
of  the  tangled  situation  her  whims,  her  necessities,  and 
her  fates  had  constructed  about  her.  She  had  been  more 
or  less  forced  into  a  betrothal  with  the  wealthy  Jim 
Dyckman  before  she  had  dissolved  her  marriage  with 
Tommie  Gilfoyle.  She  could  not  find  Gilfoyle,  and  she 
grew  frenzied  with  the  dread  that  her  inability  to  find 
him  might  thwart  all  her  dreams. 

Then  came  the  evening  when  Jim  Dyckman  telephoned 
her  that  he  could  not  keep  his  appointment  with  her.  It 
was  the  evening  he  responded  to  Charity  Coe's  appeal 
and  met  Peter  Cheever  fist  to  fist.  Kedzie  heard,  in  the 
polite  lie  he  told,  a  certain  tang  of  prevarication,  and  that 

360 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

frightened  her.  Why  was  Jim  Dyckman  trying  to  shake 
her?  Once  begun,  where  would  the  habit  end? 

That  was  a  dull  evening  for  Kedzie.  She  stuck  at  home 
without  other  society  than  her  boredom  and  her  terrors. 
She  had  few  resources  for  the  enrichment  of  solitude. 
She  tried  to  read,  but  she  could  not  find  a  popular  novel 
or  a  short  story  in  a  magazine  exciting  enough  to  keep  her 
mind  off  the  excruciating  mystery  of  the  next  instalment 
in  her  own  life.  Her  heart  ached  with  the  fear  that  she 
might  never  know  the  majesty  of  being  Mrs.  Jim  Dyck- 
man. That  almost  royal  prerogative  grew  more  and  more 
precious  the  more  she  feared  to  lose  it.  She  imagined  the 
glory  with  a  ridiculous  extravagance.  Her  theory  of  the 
life  lived  by  the  wealthy  aristocrats  was  fantastic,  but  she 
liked  it  and  longed  for  it. 

The  next  day  she  waited  to  hear  from  Jim  till  she 
could  endure  the  anxiety  no  longer.  She  ventured  to  call 
him  at  his  father's  home.  She  waited  with  trepidation 
while  she  was  put  through  to  his  room,  but  his  enthusiasm 
when  he  recognized  her  voice  refreshed  her  hopes  and  her 
pride.  She  did  not  know  that  part  of  her  welcome  was 
due  to  the  fierce  rebuke  Charity  Coe  had  inflicted  on  him 
a  little  before  because  he  had  mauled  her  husband  into  a 
wreck. 

That  evening  she  waited  for  Jim  Dyckman's  arrival 
with  an  ardor  almost  akin  to  love.  He  had  begged  off 
from  dinner.  He  did  not  explain  that  he  carried  two  or 
three  visible  fist  marks  from  Cheever's  knuckles  which  he 
did  not  wish  to  exhibit  in  a  public  restaurant. 

So  Kedzie  dined  at  home  in  solitary  gloom.  She  had 
only  herself  for  guest  and  found  herself  most  stupid 
company. 

She  dined  in  her  bathrobe  and  began  immediately  after 
dinner  to  dress  for  conquest.  She  hoped  that  Dyckman 
would  take  her  out  to  the  theater  or  a  dance,  and  she 
put  on  her  best  bib  and  tucker,  the  bib  being  conspicuously 
missing.  She  was  taking  a  last  look  at  the  arrangement 

361 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

of  her  little  living-room  when  the  telephone-bell  rang  and 
the  maid  came  to  say : 

"  'Scuse  me,  Miss  Adair,  but  hall-boy  says  your  father 
and  mother  is  down-stairs." 

Kedzie  almost  fainted.  She  did  not  dare  refuse  to  see 
them.  She  had  not  attained  that  indifference  to  the 
opinions  of  servants  which  is  the  only  real  emancipation 
from  being  the  servant  of  one's  servants. 

While  she  fumbled  with  her  impulses  the  maid  rather 
stated  than  asked,  "Shall  I  have  'em  sent  up,  of  course?" 

"Of  course,"  Kedzie  snapped. 


CHAPTER   XXXIII 

THE  Thropps  knew  Kedzie  well  enough  to  be  afraid 
of  her.  A  parental  intuition  told  them  that  if  they 
wrote  to  her  she  would  be  a  long  while  answering ;  if  they 
telephoned  her  she  would  be  out  of  town.  So  they  came 
unannounced.  It  had  taken  them  the  whole  day  to  trace 
her.  They  learned  with  dismay  that  she  was  no  longer 
"working"  at  the  Hyperfilm  Studio. 

Adna  Thropp  and  his  wife  were  impressed  by  the  ornate 
lobby  of  the  apartment-house,  by  the  livery  of  the  hall- 
boy  and  the  elevator-boy,  by  the  apron  and  cap  of  the 
maid  who  let  them  in,  and  by  the  hall  furniture. 

But  when  they  saw  their  little  Kedzie  standing  before 
them  in  her  evening  gown — her  party  dress  as  Mrs. 
Thropp  would  say — they  were  overwhelmed.  A  daughter 
is  a  fearsome  thing  to  a  father,  especially  when  she  is 
grown  up  and  dressed  up.  Adna  turned  his  eyes  away 
from  his  shining  child. 

But  the  sense  of  shame  is  as  amenable  to  costume  as  to 
the  lack  of  it,  and  Kedzie — the  shoulder-revealer — was  as 
much  shocked  by  what  her  parents  had  on  as  they  by 
what  she  had  off. 

The  three  embraced  automatically  rather  than  heartily, 
and  Kedzie  came  out  of  her  mother's  bosom  chilled, 
though  it  was  a  warm  night  and  Mrs.  Thropp  had  traveled 
long.  Also  there  was  a  lot  of  her. 

Kedzie  gave  her  parents  the  welcome  that  the  prodigal's 
elder  brother  gave  him.  She  was  thinking:  "What  will 
Jim  Dyckman  say  when  he  learns  that  my  real  name  is 

363 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Thropp  and  sees  this  pair  of  Thropps?  They  look  as  if 
their  name  would  be  Thropp." 

Adna  made  the  apologies — glad  tidings  being  mani- 
festly out  of  place. 

"Hope  we  'ain't  put  you  out,  daughter.  We  thought 
we'd  s'prise  you.  We  went  to  the  fact'ry.  Man  at  the 
door  says  you  wasn't  workin'  there  no  more.  Give  us 
this  address.  Right  nice  place  here,  ain't  it?  Looks  like 
a  nice  class  of  folks  lived  here." 

Kedzie  heard  the  rounded  "r"  and  the  flat  "a"  which 
she  had  discarded  and  scorned  the  more  because  she  had 
once  practised  them.  Children  are  generally  disappointed 
in  their  parents,  since  they  cherish  ideals  to  which  few 
parents  may  conform  from  lack  of  time,  birth,  breeding, 
or  money.  Kedzie  was  not  in  any  mood  for  parents  that 
night,  anyway,  but  if  she  had  to  have  parents,  she  would 
have  chosen  an  earl  and  a  countess  with  a  Piccadilly 
accent  and  a  concert-grand  manner.  Such  parents  it 
would  have  given  her  pleasure  and  pride  to  exhibit  to 
Dyckman.  They  would  awe-inspire  him  and  arrange  the 
marriage  settlement,  whatever  that  was. 

But  these  poor  old  shabby  dubs  in  their  shabby  duds — 
a  couple  who  were  plebeian  even  in  Jayville !  If  there  had 
not  been  such  a  popular  prejudice  against  mauling  one's 
innocent  parents  about,  Kedzie  would  probably  have  taken 
her  father  and  mother  to  the  dumb-waiter  and  sent  them 
down  to  the  ash-can. 

As  she  hung  between  despair  and  anxiety  the  telephone- 
bell  rang.  Jim  Dyckman  called  her  up  to  say  that  he 
was  delayed  for  half  an  hour.  Kedzie  came  back  and 
invited  her  parents  in.  It  made  her  sick  to  see  their 
awkwardness  among  the  furniture.  They  went  like  scows 
adrift.  They  priced  everything  with  their  eyes,  and  the 
beauty  was  spoiled  by  the  estimated  cost. 

Mrs.  Thropp  asked  Kedzie  how  she  was  half  a  dozen 
times,  and,  before  Kedzie  could  answer,  went  on  to  tell 
about  her  own  pains.  Mr.  Thropp  was  freshly  alive  to 

364 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

the  fact  that  New  York's  population  is  divided  into  two 
classes — innocent  visitors  and  resident  pirates. 

While  they  asked  Kedzie  questions  that  she  did  not 
care  to  answer,  and  answered  questions  she  had  not  cared 
to  ask,  Kedzie  kept  wondering  how  she  could  get  rid  of 
them  before  Dyckman  came.  She  thanked  Heaven  that 
there  was  no  guest-room  in  her  apartment.  They  could 
not  live  with  her,  at  least. 

Suddenly  it  came  over  the  pretty,  bewildered  little  thing 
with  her  previous  riddle  of  how  to  get  rid  of  a  last-year's 
husband  so  that  she  might  get  a  new  model — suddenly 
it  came  over  Kedzie  that  she  had  a  tremendous  necessity 
for  help,  advice,  parentage.  The  crying  need  for  a  father 
and  a  mother  enhanced  the  importance  of  the  two  she  had 
on  hand. 

She  broke  right  into  her  mother's  description  of  a 
harrowing  lumbago  she  had  suffered  from:  it  was  that  bad 
she  couldn't  neither  lay  nor  set — that  is  to  say,  comfort- 
able. Kedzie's  own  new-fangled  pronunciations  and 
phrases  fell  from  her  mind,  and  she  spoke  in  purest 
Nimrim: 

"Listen,  momma  and  poppa.  I'm  in  a  peck  of  trouble, 
and  maybe  you  can  help  me  out." 

"Is  it  money?"  Adna  wailed,  sepulchrally. 

"  No,  unless  it's  too  much  of  the  darned  stuff." 

Adna  gasped  at  the  paradox.  He  had  no  time  to  com- 
ment before  she  assailed  him  with: 

"You  see,  I've  gone  and  got  married." 

This  shattered  them  both  so  that  the  rest  was  only 
shrapnel  after  shell.  But  it  was  a  leveling  bombardment 
of  everything  near,  dear,  respectable,  sacred.  They  were 
fairly  rocked  by  each  detonation  of  fact. 

"Yes,  I  went  and  married  a  dirty  little  rat — name's 
Gilfoyle — he  thinks  my  real  name's  Anita  Adair.  I  got 
it  out  of  a  movie,  first  day  I  ran  off  from  you  folks.  I 
had  an  awful  time,  momma — like  to  starved — would  have, 
only  for  clerkin'  in  a  candy-store.  Then  I  got  work 

365 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

posln'  for  commercial  photographers.  Did  you  see  the 
Breathasweeta  Chewin'  Gum  Girl?  No?  That  was  me. 
Then  I  was  a  dancer  for  a  while — on  the  stage — and — the 
other  girls  were  awful  cats.  But  what  d'you  expect? 
The  life  was  terrible.  We  didn't  wear  much  clo'es.  That 
didn't  affect  me,  though;  some  of  those  nood  models  are 
terribly  respectable — not  that  I  was  nood,  o'  course.  But 
— well — so  I  married  Tommie  Gilfoyle.  I  don't  know 
how  I  ever  came  to.  He  must  have  mesmerized  me,  I 
guess." 

"What  did  he  work  at?"  said  Adna. 

"Poetry." 

"Is  poetry  work?" 

"Work?  That's  all  it  is.  Poetry  is  all  work  and  no 
pay.  You  should  have  seen  that  gink  sweatin'  over  the 
fool  stuff.  He'd  work  a  week  for  five  dollars'  worth  of 
foolishness.  And  besides,  as  soon  as  he  married  me  he 
lost  his  job." 

"Poetry?"  Adna  mumbled. 

"Advertising." 

"Oh!" 

"Well,  we  didn't  live  together  very  long,  and  I  was 
perfectly  miser'ble  every  minute." 

"You  poor  little  honey  child!"  said  Mrs.  Thropp,  who 
felt  her  lamb  coming  back  to  her,  and  even  Adna  reached 
over  and  squeezed  her  hand  and  rubbed  her  knuckles  with 
his  rough  thumb  uncomfortably. 

But  it  was  good  to  have  allies,  and  Kedzie  went  on: 

"By  an'  by  Gilfoyle  got  the  offer  of  a  position  in  Chicago, 
and  he  couldn't  get  there  without  borrowing  all  I  had. 
But  I  was  glad  enough  to  pay  it  to  him.  I'd  'a'  paid  his 
fare  to  the  moon  if  he'd  'a'  gone  there.  Then  I  got  a 
position  with  a  moving-picture  company — as  a  jobber — I 
began  very  humbly  at  first,  you  see,  and  I  underwent 
great  hardships."  (She  was  quoting  now  from  one  of  her 
favorite  interviews.)  "My  talent  attracted  the  attention 
of  the  director,  Mr.  Ferriday.  He  stands  very  high  in  the 

366 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

p'fession,  but  he's  very  conceited — very!  He  thought  he 
owned  me  because  he  was  the  first  one  I  let  direct  me. 
He  wanted  me  to  marry  him." 

" Did  you?"  said  Adna,  who  was  prepared  for  anything. 

"I  should  say  not!"  said  Kedzie.  "How  could  I,  with 
a  husband  in  Chicago?  He  wasn't  much  of  a  husband — 
just  enough  to  keep  me  from  marrying  a  real  man.  For 
one  day,  who  should  come  to  the  studio  but  Jim  Dyck- 
man!" 

"Any  relation  to  the  big  Dyckmans?"  said  Adna. 

"He's  the  son  of  the  biggest  one  of  them  all,"  said 
Kedzie. 

"And  you  know  him?" 

"Do  I  know  him?  Doesn't  he  want  to  marry  me? 
Isn't  that  the  whole  trouble?  He's  coming  here  this 
evening." 

To  Adna,  the  humble  railroad  claim-agent,  the  careless 
tossing  off  of  the  great  railroad  name  of  Dyckman  was 
what  it  would  have  been  to  a  rural  parson  to  hear  Kedzie 
remark : 

"  I'm  giving  a  little  dinner  to-night  to  my  friends  Isaiah, 
Jeremiah,  and  Mr.  Apostle  Paul." 

When  the  shaken  wits  of  the  parents  began  to  return 
to  a  partial  calm  they  remembered  that  Kedzie  had  men- 
tioned somebody  named  Gilfoyle — Gargoyle  would  have 
been  a  better  name  for  him,  since  he  grinned  down  in 
mockery  upon  a  cathedral  of  hope. 

Adna  whispered,  "When  did  you  divorce — the  other 
feller?" 

"I  didn't;  that's  the  trouble." 

"Why  don't  you?" 

"I  can't  find  him." 

Adna  spoke  up:  "I'll  go  to  Chicago  and  find  him  and 
get  a  divorce,  if  I  have  to  pound  it  out  of  him.  You  say 
he's  a  poet?" 

Adna  had  the  theory  that  poetry  went  with  tatting  and 
china-painting  as  an  athletic  exercise.  Kedzie  had  no 

367 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

reason  to  think  differently.  She  had  whipped  her  own 
poet,  scratched  him  and  driven  him  away  in  disorder. 
She  told  her  people  of  this  and  of  her  inability  to  recall 
him,  and  of  his  failure  to  answer  the  letter  she  had  sent  to 
Chicago. 

Her  father  and  mother  grew  incandescent  with  the 
strain  between  the  obstacle  and  the  opportunity — the 
irresistible  opportunity  chained  to  the  immovable  ob- 
stacle. They  raged  against  the  fiend  who  had  ruined 
Kedzie's  life,  met  her  on  her  pathway,  gagged  and  bound 
her,  and  haled  her  to  his  lair. 

Poor  young  Gilfoyle  would  have  been  flattered  at  the 
importance  they  gave  him,  but  he  would  not  have  recog- 
nized himself  or  Kedzie. 

According  to  his  memory,  he  had  married  Kedzie  be- 
cause she  was  a  pitiful,  heartbroken  waif  who  had  lost  her 
job  and  thrown  herself  on  his  mercy.  He  had  married 
her  because  he  adored  her  and  he  wanted  to  protect  her 
and  love  her  under  the  hallowing  shelter  of  matrimony. 
He  had  given  her  his  money  and  his  love  and  his  toil,  and 
they  had  not  interested  her.  She  had  berated  him, 
chucked  him,  taken  up  with  a  fast  millionaire;  and  when 
he  returned  to  resume  his  place  in  her  heart  she  had  greeted 
him  with  her  finger-nails. 

Thus,  as  usual  in  wars,  each  side  had  bitter  grievances 
which  the  other  could  neither  acknowledge  nor  understand. 
Gilfoyle  was  as  bitter  against  Kedzie  as  she  was  against 
him. 

And  even  while  the  three  Thropps  were  wondering  how 
they  could  summon  this  vanquished  monster  out  of  J;he 
vasty  deep  of  Chicago  they  could  have  found  him  by 
putting  their  heads  out  of  the  window  and  shouting  his 
name.  He  was  loitering  opposite  in  the  areaway  of  an 
empty  residence.  He  did  not  know  that  Kedzie's  father 
and  mother  were  with  her,  any  more  than  they  knew  that 
he  was  with  them. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

AFTER  a  deal  of  vain  abuse  of  Gilfoyle  for  abducting 
/x  their  child  and  thwarting  her  golden  opportunity, 
Adna  asked  at  last,  "What  does  Mr.  Dyckman  think  of  all 
this?" 

"You  don't  suppose  I've  told  him  I  was  married,  do 
you?"  Kedzie  stormed.  "  Do  I  look  as  loony  as  all  that?" 

"Oh!"  said  Adna. 

"Why,  he  doesn't  even  know  my  name  is  Thropp,  to 
say  nothing  of  Thropp-hyphen-Gilfoyle." 

"Oh!"  said  Adna. 

"Who  does  he  think  you  are?"  asked  Mrs.  Thropp. 

"Anita  Adair,  the  famous  favorite  of  the  screen,"  said 
Kedzie,  rather  advertisingly. 

"Hadn't  you  better  tell  him?"  Adna  ventured. 

"  I  don't  dast.  He'd  never  speak  to  me  again.  He'd 
run  like  a  rabbit  if  he  thought  I  was  a  grass  widow." 

Mrs.  Thropp  remonstrated:  "I  don't  believe  he'd  ever 
give  you  up.  He  must  love  you  a  heap  if  he  wants  to 
marry  you." 

" That's  so,"  said  Kedzie.  "  He's  always  begging  me  to 
name  the  day.  But  I  don't  know  what  he'd  think  if  I  was 
to  tell  him  I'd  been  lying  to  him  all  this  time.  He  thinks 
I'm  an  innocent  little  girl.  I  just  haven't  got  the  face 
to  tell  him  I'm  an  old  married  woman  with  a  mislaid 
husband." 

"You  mean  to  give  him  up,  then?"  Mrs.  Thropp  sighed. 

Adna  raged  back:  "Give  up  a  billion-dollar  man  for  a 
fool  poet?  Not  on  your  tintype!" 

Kedzie  gave  her  father  an  admiring  look.  They  were 

369 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

getting  on  sympathetic  ground.  They  understood  each 
other. 

Adna  was  encouraged  to  say:  "If  I  was  you,  Kedzie, 
I'd  just  lay  the  facts  before  him.  Maybe  he  could  buy 
the  feller  off.  You  could  probably  get  him  mighty 
cheap." 

Mrs.  Thropp  habitually  resented  all  her  husband's  ar- 
guments. She  scorned  this  proposal. 

"Don't  you  do  it,  Kedzie.  Just  as  you  said,  he'd 
most  likely  run  like  a  rabbit." 

"Then  what  am  I  going  to  do?"  Kedzie  whimpered. 

There  was  a  long  silence.  Mrs.  Thropp  pondered  bit- 
terly. She  was  the  most  moral  of  women.  She  had 
brought  up  her  children  with  all  rigidity.  She  had  abused 
them  for  the  least  dereliction.  She  had  upheld  the  grim- 
mest standard  of  virtue,  with  "  Don't!"  for  its  watchword. 
Of  virtue  as  a  warm-hearted,  alert,  eager,  glowing  spirit, 
cultivating  the  best  and  most  beautiful  things  in  life,  she 
had  no  idea.  Virtue  was  to  her  a  critic,  a  satirist,  a  neigh- 
borhood gossip,  something  scathing  and  ascetic.  That 
delicate  balance  between  failing  to  mind  one's  own  business 
and  failing  to  respond  to  another's  need  did  not  bother 
her — nor  did  that  theory  of  motherhood  which  instils 
courage,  independence,  originality,  and  enthusiasm  for 
life,  and  starts  children  precociously  toward  beauty,  love, 
grace,  philanthropy,  invention,  art,  glory. 

She  had  the  utmost  contempt  for  girls  who  went  right 
according  to  their  individualities,  or  went  wrong  for  any 
reason  soever.  The  least  indiscretions  of  her  own  daugh- 
ters she  visited  with  endless  tirades.  Kedzie  had  escaped 
them  for  a  long  while.  She  had  succeeded  as  far  as  she 
had  because  she  had  escaped  from  the  most  dangerous 
of  all  influences — a  perniciously  repressive  mother.  She 
would  have  been  scolded  viciously  now  if  it  had  not  been 
for  Dyckman's  mighty  prestige. 

The  Dyckman  millions  in  person  were  about  to  enter 
this  room.  The  Dyckman  millions  wanted  Kedzie.  If 

370 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

they  got  her  it  would  be  a  wonderful  thing  for  a  poor, 
hard-working  girl  who  had  had  the  spunk  to  strike  out 
for  herself  and  make  her  own  way  without  expense  to  her 
father  and  mother.  The  Dyckman  millions,  furthermore, 
would  bring  the  millennium  at  once  to  the  father  and 
mother. 

Mrs.  Thropp,  fresh  from  her  village  (yet  not  so  very 
fresh — say,  rather,  recent  from  sordid  humility),  sat 
dreaming  of  herself  as  a  Dyckman  by  marriage.  She 
imagined  herself  and  the  great  Mrs.  Dyckman  in  adjoining 
rocking-chairs,  exchanging  gossip  and  recipes  and  anec- 
dotes of  their  joint  grandchildren-to-be.  Just  to  inhale 
the  aroma  of  that  future,  that  vision  of  herself  as  Mr. 
Dyckman 's  mother-in-law,  was  like  breathing  in  deeply 
of  laughing-gas;  a  skilful  dentist  could  have  extracted  a 
molar  from  her  without  attracting  her  attention.  And  in 
the  vapor  of  that  stupendous  temptation  the  devil  actu- 
ally did  extract  from  her  her  entire  moral  code  without  her 
noticing  the  difference. 

If  Kedzie  had  been  married  to  Gilfoyle  and  besought 
in  marriage  by  another  fellow  of  the  same  relative  standard 
of  income  Mrs.  Thropp  could  have  waxed  as  indignant  as 
anybody.  If  Kedzie's  new  suitor  had  earned  as  high  as 
four  thousand  a  year,  which  was  a  pile  of  money  in  Nim- 
rim,  she  would  still  have  raged  against  the  immorality 
of  tampering  with  the  sacrament  of  marriage.  She  might 
have  withstood  as  much  as  twenty  thousand  a  year  for  the 
sake  of  home  and  religion.  She  abhorred  divorce,  as  well 
as  other  people  do  (especially  divorcees'). 

But  to  resist  a  million  dollars  and  all  that  went  with  it 
was  impossible.  To  resist  a  score  of  millions  was  twenty 
times  impossibler.  She  made  up  her  mind  that  Dyckman 
should  not  escape  from  this  temporary  alliance  with  the 
Thropps  without  paying  at  least  a  handsome  initiation- 
fee.  Suddenly  she  set  her  jaw  and  broke  into  the  parley 
of  her  husband  and  their  daughter: 

"Well,  I've  made  up  my  mind.     Adna,  you  shut  up 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

awhile  and  get  on  out  this  room.  I'm  going  to  have  a  few 
words  with  my  girl." 

Adna  looked  into  the  face  of  his  wife  and  saw  there  that 
red-and-white-striped  expression  which  always  puts  a  wise 
man  to  flight.  He  was  glad  to  be  permitted  to  retreat. 
When  he  was  gone  Mrs.  Thropp  beckoned  Kedzie  to  sit 
by  her  on  the  chaise  longue.  She  gathered  her  child  up  as 
some  adoring  old  buzzard  might  cuddle  her  nestling  and 
impart  choice  ideals  of  scavengery. 

"Look  here,  honey:  you  listen  to  your  mother  what 
loves  you  and  knows  what's  best  for  you.  You've  struck 
out  for  yourself  and  you've  won  the  grandest  chance  any 
girl  ever  had.  If  you  throw  it  away  you'll  be  slappin' 
Providence  right  in  the  face.  The  Lord  would  never  have 
put  this  op'tunity  in  your  reach  if  He  hadn't  meant  you 
to  have  it." 

"What  you  talking  about,  momma?"  said  Kedzie. 

" My  father  always  used  to  say:  ' Old  Man  Op'tunity  is 
bald-headed  except  for  one  long  scalplock  in  the  middle 
his  forehead.  Grab  him  as  he  comes  toward  you,  for 
there's  nothing  to  lay  holt  on  as  he  goes  by.'" 

"What's  all  this  talk  about  bald-heads?"  Kedzie  pro- 
tested. 

"  Hush  your  mouth  and  listen  to  a  woman  that's  older  'n 
what  you  are  and  knows  more.  Look  at  me!  I've  slaved 
all  my  life.  I've  been  a  hard-workin',  church-goin' 
woman,  a  good  mother  to  a  lot  of  ungrateful  children,  a 
faithful,  lovin'  wife — and  what  have  I  got  for  it?  Look 
at  me.  Do  you  want  to  be  like  me  when  you  get  my  age  ? 
Do  you?" 

It  was  a  hard  question  to  answer  politely,  so  Kedzie 
said  nothing.  Mrs.  Thropp  went  on: 

"You  got  a  chance  to  look  like  me  and  live  hard  and  die 
poor,  and  that's  what  '11  happen  if  you  stick  by  this  low- 
life,  good-for-nothing  dawg  you  married.  Don't  do  it. 
Money's  come  your  way.  Grab  it  quick.  Hold  on  to  it 
tight.  Money's  the  one  thing  that  counts.  You  take 

372 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

my  word  for  it.  It  don't  matter  much  how  you  get  it; 
the  main  thing  is  Get  it!  People  don't  ask  you  How? 
but  How  Much?  If  you  got  enough  they  don't  care 
How." 

"That's  all  right  enough,"  said  Kedzie,  "but  the  main 
question  with  me  is  How?" 

"How  is  easy,"  said  Mrs.  Thropp,  and  her  face  seemed 
to  turn  yellow  as  she  lowered  her  voice.  "This  Mr. 
Dyckman  is  crazy  about  you.  He  wants  you.  If  he's 
willin'  to  many  you  to  get  you,  I  guess  he'll  be  still 
more  willin'  to  get  you  without  marryin'  you." 

"Why,  momma!" 

It  was  just  a  whisper.  Kedzie  had  lived  through  village 
perils  and  city  perils;  she  had  been  one  of  a  band  of 
dancers  as  scant  of  morals  as  of  clothes;  she  had  drifted 
through  all  sorts  of  encounters  with  all  sorts  of  people; 
but  she  had  never  heard  so  terrible  a  thought  so  terribly 
expressed.  She  flinched  from  her  mother.  Her  mother 
saw  that  shudder  of  retreat  and  grew  harsher: 

"You  tell  Mr.  Dyckman  about  your  husband,  and  you'll 
lose  him.  You  will — for  sure !  If  you  lose  him,  you  lose 
the  greatest  chance  a  girl  ever  had.  Take  him — and 
make  him  pay  for  you! — in  advance.  Do  you  under- 
stand? You  can't  get  much  afterward.  You  can  get  a 
fortune  if  you  get  your  money  first.  Look  at  you,  how 
pretty  you  are!  He'd  give  you  a  million  if  you  asked 
him.  Get  your  money;  then  tell  him  if  you  want  to; 
but  don't  lose  this  chance.  Do  you  hear  me?" 

"Yes,"  Kedzie  sighed.     "Yes,  momma." 

"  Promise  me  on  your  solemn  honor!" 

Kedzie  giggled  with  sheer  nervousness  at  the  phrase. 
But  she  would  not  promise. 

The  door-bell  rang,  and  the  maid  admitted  Jim  Dyck- 
man, who  had  not  paused  to  send  his  name  up  by  the 
telephone.  While  he  gave  his  hat  and  stick  to  the  maid 
and  peeled  off  his  gloves  Kedzie  was  whispering: 

"It's  Jim." 

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WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Mrs.  Thropp  struggled  to  her  feet.  "He  mustn't  find 
me  here,"  she  said.  "Don't  tell  him  about  us." 

But  before  she  could  escape  Dyckman  was  in  the  door- 
way, almost  too  tall  to  walk  through  it,  almost  as  tall  as 
twenty  million  dollars. 

To  Mrs.  Thropp  he  was  as  majestic  as  the  Colossus  of 
Rhodes  would  have  been.  Like  the  Colossus  of  Rhodes, 
he  was  a  gilded  giant. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

was  paralyzed.  Mrs.  Thropp  was  inspired. 
Unity  of  purpose  guided  her  true.  She  had  told 
her  daughter  to  ignore  Gilfoyle  as  an  unimportant  detail. 
She  certainly  did  not  intend  to  substitute  a  couple  of 
crude  parents  as  a  new  handicap. 

No  one  knew  Mrs.  Thropp's  cheapness  of  appearance 
better  than  she  did.  A  woman  may  grow  shoddy  and 
careless,  but  she  rarely  grows  oblivious  of  her  uncomeliness. 
She  will  rather  cherish  it  as  the  final  cruelty  of  circum- 
stances. Mrs.  Thropp  was  keenly  alive  to  the  effect  it 
would  have  on  Dyckman  if  Kedzie  introduced  her  and 
Adna  as  the  encumbrances  on  her  beauty. 

Adna,  hearing  the  door-bell  and  Dyckman's  entrance, 
returned  to  the  living-room  from  the  bathroom,  where  he 
had  taken  refuge.  He  stood  in  the  hall  now  behind  the 
puzzled  Dyckman. 

There  was  a  dreadful  silence  for  a  moment.  Jim  spoke, 
shyly : 

"  Hello,  Anita !     How  are  you  ?" 

"Hello,  Jim!"  Kedzie  stammered.     "This  is—" 

"I'm  the  janitor's  wife,"  said  Mrs.  Thropp.  "My 
husband  had  to  come  up  to  see  about  the  worter  not  run- 
ning in  the  bathroom,  and  I  came  along  to  see  Miss — the 
young  lady.  She's  been  awful  good  to  me.  Well,  I'll 
be  gettin'  along.  Good  night,  miss.  Good  night,  sir." 

To  save  herself,  she  could  not  think  of  Kedzie's  screen 
name.  To  save  her  daughter's  future,  she  disowned  her. 
She  pushed  past  Dyckman,  and  silencing  the  stupefied 
Adna  with  a  glare,  swept  him  out  through  the  dining-room 
into  the  kitchen. 

375 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

It  amazed  Mrs.  Thropp  to  find  a  kitchen  so  many  flights 
up-stairs.  The  ingenuity  of  the  devices,  the  step-saving 
cupboard,  the  dry  ice-box  with  its  coils  of  cold-air  pipes, 
the  gas-stove,  the  electric  appliances,  were  like  wonderful 
new  toys  to  her. 

Adna  was  as  comfortable  as  a  cow  in  a  hammock,  and 
she  would  have  sent  him  away,  but  his  hat  was  in  the  hall 
and  she  dared  not  go  for  it.  Besides,  she  wanted  to  wait 
long  enough  to  learn  the  outcome  of  Kedzie's  adventure 
with  Dyckman. 

As  soon  as  he  was  alone  with  Kedzie,  Jim  had  taken 
her  into  his  arms.  She  blushed  with  an  unwonted  timid- 
ity in  a  new  sense  of  the  forbiddenness  of  her  presence 
there. 

Her  upward  glance  showed  her  that  Jim  had  been  in 
trouble,  too.  His  jaw  had  a  mottled  look,  and  one  eye- 
brow was  a  trifle  mashed. 

"What  on  earth  has  happened  to  you?"  she  gasped. 

"Oh,  I  had  a  little  run-in  with  a  fellow." 

"What  about?"  said  Kedzie. 

"Nothing  much." 

"He  must  have  hurt  you  terribly." 

"Think  so?    Well,  you  ought  to  see  him." 

"What  was  it  all  about?" 

"Oh,  just  a  bit  of  an  argument." 

"Who  was  he?" 

"Nobody  you  know." 

"You  mean  it's  none  of  my  business?" 

"I  wouldn't  put  it  that  way,  honey.  I'd  just  rather 
not  talk  about  it." 

Kedzie  felt  rebuffed  and  afraid.  He  had  spent  an 
evening  away  from  her  and  had  reappeared  with  scars 
from  a  battle  he  would  not  describe.  She  would  have  been 
still  more  terrified  if  she  had  known  that  he  had  fought 
as  the  cavalier  of  Charity  Coe  Cheever.  She  would  have 
been  somewhat  reassured  if  she  had  known  that  Jim 
smarted  less  under  the  bruises  of  Cheever's  fists  than  under 

376 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

the  rebuke  he  had  had  from  Charity  for  his  interference 
in  her  marital  crisis. 

Jim  was  the  more  in  need  of  Kedzie's  devotion  for  being 
discarded  again  by  Charity.  The  warmth  in  Kedzie's 
greeting  was  due  to  her  fear  of  losing  him.  But  he  did  not 
know  that.  He  only  knew  that  she  was  exceedingly  cor- 
dial to  him,  and  it  was  his  nature  to  repay  cordiality  with 
usury. 

He  noted,  however,  that  Kedzie's  warmth  had  an 
element  of  anxiety.  He  asked  her  what  was  worrying  her, 
but  she  would  not  answer. 

At  length  he  made  his  usual  remark.  It  had  become  a 
sort  of  standing  joke  for  him  to  say,  "When  do  we  marry?" 

She  always  answered,  "Give  me  a  little  more  time." 
But  to-night  when  he  laughed,  "Well,  just  to  get  the  sub- 
ject out  of  the  way,  when  do  we  marry?"  Kedzie  did  not 
make  her  regular  answer.  Her  pretty  face  was  sud- 
denly darkened  with  pain.  She  moaned :  ' '  Never,  I  guess. 
Never,  I'm  afraid." 

"What's  on  your  mind,  Anita?" 

She  hesitated,  but  when  he  repeated  his  query  she  took 
the  plunge  and  told  him  the  truth. 

Her  mother  had  pleaded  just  a  little  too  well.  If  Mrs. 
Thropp  had  begged  Kedzie  to  do  the  right  thing  for  the 
right's  sake  Kedzie  would  have  felt  the  natural  reaction 
daughters  feel  toward  motherly  advice.  But  the  en- 
treaty to  do  evil  that  evil  might  come  of  it  aroused  even 
more  resistance,  issuing  as  it  did  from  maternal  lips  that 
traditionally  give  only  holy  counsel.  It  had  a  more  re- 
forming effect  on  Kedzie's  crooked  plans  than  all  the 
exhortations  of  all  the  preachers  in  the  world  could  have 
had. 

Kedzie  turned  to  honesty  because  it  seemed  the  less 
horrible  of  two  evils.  She  assumed  the  r61e  of  a  little 
penitent,  and  made  Jim  Dyckman  a  father  confessor. 
She  told  her  story  as  truthfully  as  she  could  tell  it  or  feel 
it.  She  was  too  sincere  to  be  just. 

377 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

She  made  herself  the  martyr  that  she  felt  herself  to  be. 
She  wept  plentifully  and  prettily,  with  irresistible  gulps 
and  swallowings  of  lumps  and  catches  of  breath,  fetches 
of  sobs,  and  dartings  and  gleamings  of  pearls  from  her 
shining  eyelids.  Her  handkerchief  was  soon  a  little 
wad  of  wet  lace,  ridiculously  pathetic;  her  lips  were 
blubbered.  She  wept  on  and  on  till  she  just  had  to  blow 
her  little  red  nose.  She  blew  it  with  exquisite  candor, 
and  it  gave  forth  the  heartbreaking  squawk  of  the  first  toy 
trumpet  a  child  breaks  of  a  Christmas  morning. 

One  radical  difference  between  romance  and  realism 
is  that  in  romance  the  heroines  weep  from  the  eyelashes 
out;  in  realism,  some  of  the  tears  get  into  the  nostrils. 
In  real  life  it  is  reality  that  moves  our  hearts,  and  Dyck- 
man  was  convinced  by  Kedzie's  realism. 

She  did  not  need  to  tell  him  of  her  humble  and  Western 
birth.  He  had  recognized  her  accent  from  the  first,  and 
forgiven  it.  He  knew  a  little  of  her  history,  because 
Charity  Coe  had  sent  him  to  the  studio  to  look  her  up, 
reminding  him  that  she  had  been  the  little  dancer  he 
pulled  out  of  Mrs.  Noxon's  pool. 

At  length  Kedzie  revealed  the  horrible  fact  that  her 
real  name  was  Kedzie  Thropp.  He  laughed  aloud.  He 
was  so  tickled  by  her  babyish  remorse  that  he  made  her 
say  it  again.  He  told  her  he  loved  it  twice  as  well  as  the 
stilted,  stagy  "Anita  Adair." 

"That's  one  of  the  reasons  I  wanted  you  to  marry  me," 
he  said,  "so  that  I  could  change  your  horrible  name." 

"But  I  changed  it  myself  first,"  Kedzie  howled;  and 
now  the  truth  came  ripping.  "The  day  after  you  pulled 
me  out  of  the  pool  at  Newport  I — I — married  a  fellow 
named  Tommie  Gilfoyle." 

Dyckman's  smile  was  swept  from  his  face;  his  chuckle 
ended  in  a  groan.  Kedzie's  explanation  was  a  little  dif- 
ferent from  the  one  she  gave  her  parents.  Unconsciously 
she  tuned  it  to  her  audience.  It  grew  a  trifle  more 
literary. 

378 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"What  could  I  do?  I  was  alone  in  the  world,  without 
friends  or  money  or  position.  He  happened  to  be  at  the 
railroad  station.  He  saw  how  frightened  I  was,  and  he 
had  loved  me  for  a  long  time.  He  begged  me  to  take 
mercy  on  him  and  on  myself,  and  marry  him.  He  offered 
me  his  protection;  he  said  I  should  be  his  wife  in  name 
only  until  I  learned  to  love  him.  And  I  was  alone  in  the 
world,  without  friends  or  money — but  I  told  you  that 
once,  didn't  I?" 

Dyckman  was  thinking  hard,  aching  hard.  He  mum- 
bled, "What  became  of  him?" 

"When  he  saw  that  I  couldn't  love  him  he  took  some 
money  I  had  left  from  my  earnings  and  abandoned  me.  I 
had  a  desperate  struggle  to  get  along,  and  then  I  got  my 
chance  in  the  moving  pictures,  and  I  met  you  there — and — 
learned  what  love  is — too  late — too  late!" 

Dyckman  broke  in  on  her  lyric  grief,  "What  became  of 
the  man  you  married?" 

"He  never  came  near  me  till  awhile  ago.  He  saw  my 
pictures  on  the  screen  and  thought  I  must  be  making  a 
big  lot  of  money.  He  came  here  and  tried  to  sneak  back 
into  my  good  graces.  He  even  tried  to  kiss  me,  and  I 
nearly  tore  his  eyes  out." 

"Why?"  Jim  asked. 

"Because  I  belong  to  nobody  but  you — at  least,  I  did 
belong  to  nobody  but  you.  But  now  you  won't  want  me 
any  more.  I  don't  blame  you  for  hating  me.  I  hate 
myself.  I've  deceived  you,  and  you'll  never  believe  me 
again,  or  love  me,  or  anything." 

She  wept  ardently,  for  she  was  appalled  by  the  mag- 
nitude of  her  deception,  now  that  it  stood  exposed.  She 
had  no  idea  of  the  magnitude  of  Dyckman's  chivalry. 
She  slipped  to  the  floor  and  laid  her  head  on  his  knee. 

It  was  Dyckman's  nature  to  respond  at  once  to  any 
appeal  to  his  sympathy  or  his  courtesy.  Automatically 
his  heart  warmed  toward  human  distress.  He  felt  a 
deeper  interest  in  Kedzie  than  before,  because  she  threw 

379 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

herself  on  his  mercy  as  never  before.  His  hand  went  out 
to  her  head  and  fell  upon  her  hair  with  a  kind  of  apostolic 
benediction.  He  poured,  as  it  were,  an  ointment  of  abso- 
lution and  acceptance  upon  her  curls. 

She  felt  in  his  very  fingers  so  much  reassurance  that 
she  was  encouraged  to  unburden  herself  altogether  of  her 
hoard  of  secrets. 

"There's  one  more  awful  thing  you'll  never  forgive  me 
for,  Jim.  I  want  to  tell  you  that,  and  then  you'll  know 
all  the  worst  of  me.  My  father  and  mother  came  to  town 
to-day,  and — and  that  was  my  mother  who  said  she  was 
the  janitor's  wife." 

"Why  did  she  do  that?"  said  Jim. 

"I  had  been  telling  them  how  much  I  loved  you,  and 
poor  dear  mother  was  afraid  you  might  be  scared  away 
if  you  knew  how  poor  my  people  are." 

"What  kind  of  a  ghastly  snob  do  they  take  me  for?" 
Jim  growled. 

"They  don't  know  you  as  I  do,"  said  Kedzie;  "but 
even  I  can't  expect  you  to  forgive  everything.  I've  lied  to 
you  about  everything  except  about  loving  you,  and  I  was 
a  long  while  telling  you  the  truth  about  that.  But  now 
you  know  all  there  is  to  know  about  me,  and  I  wouldn't 
blame  you  for  despising  me.  Of  course  I  don't  expect 
you  to  want  to  marry  me  any  longer,  so  I'll  give  you  back 
your  beautiful  engagement  ring." 

With  her  arms  across  his  knees,  one  of  her  delicate 
hands  began  to  draw  from  the  other  a  gold  circlet  knobbed 
with  diamonds. 

"Don't  do  that,"  Jim  said,  taking  her  hands  in  his. 
"The  engagement  stands." 

"But  how  can  it,  darling?"  said  Kedzie.  "You  can't 
love  me  any  more." 

"Of  course  I  do,  more  and  more." 

"But  you  can  never  marry  me,  and  surely  you  don't 
want — " 

Suddenly  she  ran  plump  into  the  situation  her  mother 
380 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

had  imagined  and  encouraged.  She  blushed  at  the  colli- 
sion with  it,  and  became  a  very  allegory  of  innocence  con- 
fronted with  abhorrent  evil. 

"Of  course  I  don't,"  said  Dyckman,  divining  exactly 
what  she  meant.  "I'll  find  this  Gilfoyle  and  buy  him 
up  or  beat  him  to  a  pulp." 

Kedzie  lifted  her  downcast  eyes  in  gratitude  for  such  a 
godlike  resolution.  But  before  she  could  cry  out  in 
praise  of  it  she  cried  out  in  terror. 

For  right  before  her  stood  the  long-lost  Gilfoyle. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

TOURING  his  long  wait  this  evening  Gilfoyle  had 
\-J  grown  almost  uncontrollable  with  impatience  to  un- 
dertake the  assault.  His  landlady  had  warned  him  not  to 
return  to  his  room  until  he  brought  some  cash  on  account. 
He  was  for  making  the  charge  the  moment  he  saw  Jim 
Dyckman  enter  the  building,  but  Connery  insisted  on  giv- 
ing Dyckman  time  to  get  forward  with  his  courtship. 
They  had  seen  the  maid  come  out  of  the  servants'  en- 
trance and  hurry  up  the  street  to  the  vain  tryst  Connery 
had  arranged  with  her  to  get  her  out  of  the  way. 

At  length,  when  time  had  passed  sufficiently,  they  had 
crossed  to  the  apartment-house  and  told  the  elevator-boy 
they  were  expected  by  the  tenants  above.  He  took  them 
up  without  question.  They  pretended  to  ring  the  bell 
there,  waited  for  the  elevator  to  disappear,  then  walked 
down  a  flight  of  steps  and  paused  at  the  fatal  sill. 

Connery  inserted  the  key  stealthily  into  the  lock, 
turned  it,  opened  the  door  in  silence,  and  let  Gilfoyle  slip 
through.  He  followed  and  closed  the  door  without  shock. 

They  heard  Kedzie's  murmurous  tones  and  the  rumble 
of  Dyckman 's  answer.  Then  Gilfoyle  strode  forward. 
He  saw  Kedzie  coiled  on  the  floor  with  her  elbows  on 
Dyckman's  knees.  He  caught  her  eye,  and  her  start  of 
bewilderment  held  him  spellbound  a  moment.  Then  he 
cried: 

"There  you  are!  I've  got  you!  You  faithless  little 
beast." 

Dyckman  rose  to  an  amazing  height,  lifted  Kedzie  to 
her  feet,  and  answered: 

382 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Who  the  devil  are  you,  and  what  the  devil  do  you 
want?"  ' 

"I'm  the  husband  of  that  shameless  woman;  that's 
who  I  am,"  Gilfoyle  shrilled,  a  little  cowed  by  Dyckman's 
stature. 

"Oh,  you  are,  are  you!"  said  Dyckman.  "Well,  you're 
the  very  chap  I'm  looking  for.  Come  in,  by  all  means." 

Connery,  seeing  that  the  initiative  was  slipping  from 
Gilfoyle's  flaccid  hand,  pushed  forward  with  truculence. 

"None  of  that,  you  big  bluff!  You  needn't  think  you 
can  put  anything  over  on  me." 

"And  who  are  you?"  said  Dyckman. 

"I'm  Connery  the  detective,  and  I've  got  the  goods  on 
you." 

He  advanced  on  Dyckman,  and  Gilfoyle  came  with  him. 
Gilfoyle  took  courage  from  the  puzzled  confusion  of 
Dyckman,  and  he  poured  forth  invectives. 

"You  think  because  you're  rich  you  can  go  around 
breaking  up  homes  and  decoying  wives  away,  do  you? 
Not  that  she  isn't  willing  enough  to  be  decoyed!  I  wasn't 
good  enough  for  her.  She  had  to  sell  herself  for  money 
and  jewelry  and  a  gay  time!  I  ought  to  kill  you  both, 
and  maybe  I  will;  but  first  I'm  going  to  show  you  up  in 
the  newspapers." 

"Oh,  you  are,  are  you!"  was  the  best  that  Dyckman 
could  improvise. 

"  Yes,  he  is,"  Connery  roared.  "  I'm  a  newspaper  man, 
and  your  name's  worth  head-lines  in  every  paper  in  the 
country.  And  I'll  see  that  it  gets  there,  too.  It  will 
go  on  the  wires  to-night  unless — " 

"Unless  what?" 

"Unless  you  come  across  with — " 

"Oh,  that's  it,  is  it !"  said  Dyckman.  "Just  a  little  old- 
fashioned  blackmail!" 

He  had  tasted  the  joys  of  violence  in  his  bout  with 
Cheever,  and  now  he  had  recourse  to  it  again.  His  long 
arms  went  out  swiftly  toward  the  twain  of  his  assailants. 

383 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

His  big  hands  cupped  their  heads  as  if  they  were  melons, 
and  he  knocked  their  skulls  together  smartly. 

He  might  have  battered  them  to  death,  but  he  heard 
Kedzie's  little  cry  of  horror,  and  forbore.  He  flung  the 
heads  from  him,  and  the  bodies  followed  limply.  Con- 
nery  went  to  the  floor,  and  Gilfoyle  sprawled  across  a 
chair.  They  were  almost  unconscious,  their  brains  re- 
duced to  swirling  nebulae. 

Kedzie  thought  for  a  moment  that  she  and  ner  love- 
affairs  had  brought  about  a  double  murder.  She  saw  her- 
self becoming  one  of  those  little  women  who  appear  with 
an  almost  periodic  regularity  in  the  annals  of  crime,  and 
whose  red  smiles  drag  now  this,  now  that  great  family's 
name  into  the  mud  and  vomit  of  public  nausea. 

She  would  lose  Jim  Dyckman,  after  all,  and  ruin  him  in 
the  losing.  She  clung  to  his  arm  to  check  him  in  his  work 
of  devastation.  He,  too,  stood  wondering  at  the  amazing 
deed  of  his  rebellious  hands,  and  wondering  what  the  result 
would  be. 

He  and  Kedzie  rejoiced  at  seeing  the  victims  move. 
Connery  began  to  squirm  on  the  floor  and  get  to  his 
wabbly  knees,  and  Gilfoyle  writhed  back  to  consciousness 
with  wits  a-flutter. 

There  was  a  silence  of  mutual  attention  for  a  while. 
Connery  was  growling  from  all-fours  like  a  surly  dog: 

"I'll  get  you  for  this — you'll  see!  You'll  be  sorry  for 
this." 

This  restored  Dyckman's  temper  to  its  throne.  He 
seized  Connery  by  the  scruff  of  his  coat,  jerked  him  to  his 
feet,  and  snarled  at  him: 

"Haven't  you  had  enough,  you  little  mucker?  You 
threaten  me  or  Miss  Adair  again  and  I'll  not  leave  enough 
of  you  to — to — " 

He  was  not  apt  at  phrases,  but  Connery  felt  metaphors 
enough  in  the  size  of  the  fist  before  his  nose.  He  put  up 
his  hands,  palms  forward,  in  the  ancient  gesture  of  sur- 
render. 

384 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Then  Gilfoyle  turned  cry-baby  and  began  to  sob. 

"You  call  her  Miss  Adair!  But  she's  my  wife.  Mrs.- 
Gilfoyle  is  what  she  is,  and  you've  taken  her  away  from 
me.  This  is  a  rotten  country,  and  you  rotten  millionaires 
can  do  nearly  anything  you  want  to — but  not  quite. 
You'll  find  that  out.  There  are  still  a  few  courts  and  a  few 
newspapers  you  can't  muzzle." 

Dyckman  advanced  against  him,  but  Gilfoyle  merely 
clung  to  the  back  of  his  chair,  and  his  non-resistance  was  his 
best  shelter.  It  was  impossible  for  Dyckman  to  strike 
him.  Secure  in  his  helplessness,  he  took  full  advantage 
of  the  tyranny  of  impotence.  He  rose  to  his  feet  and  went 
on  with  his  lachrymose  philippic. 

"You're  going  to  pay  for  what  you've  done,  and  pay 
high!" 

The  one  thing  that  restrained  Dyckman  from  offering 
to  buy  him  out  was  that  he  demanded  purchase.  Like 
most  rich  people,  Dyckman  was  the  everlasting  target  of 
prayers  and  threats.  He  could  be  generous  to  an  appeal, 
but  a  demand  locked  his  heart. 

He  answered  Gilfoyle's  menace,  bluntly,  "I'll  pay 
you  when  hell  freezes  over,  and  not  a  cent  before." 

"Well,  then,  you  stand  from  under,"  Gilfoyle  squealed. 
"There's  a  law  in  this  State  against  home- wreckers  like 
you,  and  I  can  send  you  to  the  penitentiary  for  breaking 
it." 

Dyckman' s  rage  blackened  again;  he  caught  Gilfoyle 
by  the  shoulder  and  roared:  "You  foul-mouthed,  filthy- 
minded  little  sneak!  You  say  a  word  against  your  wife 
and  I'll  throw  you  out  of  the  window.  She's  too  decent 
for  you  to  understand.  You  get  down  on  your  knees  and 
ask  her  pardon." 

He  forced  Gilfoyle  to  his  knees,  but  he  could  not  make 
him  pray.  And  Kedzie  fell  back  from  him.  She  was 
afraid  to  pose  as  a  saint  worthy  of  genuflection.  Connery 
re-entered  the  conflict  with  a  sneer: 

"Aw,  tell  it  to  the  judge,  Dyckman!  Tell  it  to  the 
25  385 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

judge!  See  how  good  it  listens  to  him.  We'll  tell  him 
how  we  found  you  here ;  and  you  tell  him  you  were  holding 
a  prayer-meeting.  You  didn't  want  to  be  disturbed,  so 
you  didn't  have  even  a  servant  around — all  alone  together 
at  this  hour." 

Then  a  new,  strange  voice  spoke  in. 

"Who  said  they  were  alone?" 

The  four  turned  to  see  Mrs.  Thropp  filling  the  hall  door- 
way, and  Adna's  head  back  of  her  shoulder.  It  was  really 
a  little  too  melodramatic.  The  village  lassie  goes  to  the 
great  city ;  her  father  and  mother  arrive  in  all  their  bucolic 
innocence  just  in  time  to  save  her  from  destruction. 

Connery,  whose  climax  she  had  spoiled,  though  she  had 
probably  saved  his  bones,  gasped,  "Who  the  hell  are  you?" 

"I'm  this  child's  mother;  that's  who  I  am.  And 
that's  her  father.  And  what's  more,  we've  been  here  all 
evening,  and  you'd  better  look  out  how  you  swear  at  me 
or  I'll  sick  Mr.  Dyckman  on  you." 

If  there  are  gallery  gods  in  heaven,  and  angels  with  a 
melodramatic  taste  (as  there  must  be,  for  how  else  could 
we  have  acquired  it?),  they  must  have  shaken  the  cloudy 
rafters  with  applause.  Only  one  touch  was  needed  to 
perfect  the  scene,  and  that  was  for  the  First  and  Second 
Villains  to  slink  off,  cursing  and  muttering,  "Foiled 
again!" 

But  these  villains  were  not  professionals,  and  they  had 
not  been  rehearsed.  They  were  like  childish  actors  in  a 
juvenile  production  at  five  pins  per  admission.  An  un- 
expected line  threw  them  into  complete  disorder. 

Connery  turned  to  Gilfoyle.  "Did  you  ever  lamp  this 
old  lady  before?" 

Gilfoyle  answered,  stoutly  enough,  "I  never  laid  eyes 
on  her." 

Connery  was  about  to  order  Mrs.  Thropp  out  of  the 
room  as  an  impostor,  but  she  would  not  be  denied  her 
retort. 

"0'  course  he  never  laid  eyes  on  me.  If  he  had  have 

386 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

he'd  never  tried  to  pull  the  wool  over  that  innocent  baby's 
eyes;  and  if  I'd  ever  laid  eyes  on  him  I'd  have  run  him 
out  of  the  country  before  I'd  ever  have  let  my  child 
look  at  him  a  second  time." 

Connery  made  one  last  struggle:  "What  proof  have 
you  got  that  you're  her  mother?" 

"Ask  my  husband  here." 

"What  good  is  his  word  in  such  a  matter?" 

Connery  did  not  mean  this  as  in  any  sense  a  reflection 
on  Mrs.  Thropp's  marital  integrity,  but  she  took  it  so. 
Now,  in  Nimrim  the  question  of  fidelity  is  not  dealt  with 
lightly,  at  least  in  repartee.  Mrs.  Thropp  emitted  a  roar 
of  scandalized  virtue  and  would  have  attacked  the  young 
men  with  her  fists  if  her  husband,  who  should  have  at- 
tacked them  in  her  stead,  had  not  clung  to  her,  murmuring: 

"Now,  momma,  don't  get  excited.  You  young  fellers 
better  vamoose  quick.  I  can't  holt  her  very  long." 

So  they  vamosed  and  were  much  obliged  for  the  op- 
portunity, leaving  Kedzie  to  fling  her  arms  about  her 
mother  with  spontaneous  filial  affection,  and  to  present 
Dyckman  to  her  with  genuine  pride. 

Dyckman  had  been  almost  as  frightened  as  Kedzie. 
He  had  been  more  afraid  of  his  own  temper  than  of  his 
assailants,  but  afraid  enough  of  their  shadowy  powers. 
Mrs.  Thropp  would  have  had  to  be  far  less  comely  than 
she  was  to  be  unwelcome.  She  had  the  ultimate  charm, 
of  perfect  timeliness.  He  greeted  her  with  that  deference 
he  paid  to  all  women,  and  she  adored  him  at  once,  in- 
dependently of  his  fortune. 

Adna  said  that  he  had  always  been  an  admirer  of  the 
old  Dyckman  and  was  glad  to  meet  his  boy,  being  as  he 
was  a  railroad  man  himself,  in  a  small  way.  He  rather 
gave  the  impression  that  he  was  at  least  a  third  vice- 
president,  but  very  modest  about  it. 

Mrs.  Thropp  gleaned  from  the  first  words  that  Kedzie 
had  gone  contrary  to  her  advice  and  had  told  Dyckman 
the  truth.  She  took  the  credit  calmly. 

337 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"I  come  on  East  to  clear  things  up,  and  I  advised  my 
daughter  to  tell  you  just  the  way  things  were — as  I  always 
say  to  my  children,  use  the  truth  and  shame  the  devil." 

Kedzie  was  too  busy  to  notice  the  outrage.  She  was 
thanking  Heaven  for  her  impulse  to  reveal  the  facts, 
realizing  how  appalling  it  would  have  been  if  Gilfoyle 
had  been  the  first  to  inform  Dyckman. 

They  were  all  having  a  joyous  family  party  when  it 
suddenly  came  over  them  that  Gilfoyle  had  once  more  ap- 
peared and  resubmerged.  But  Dyckman  said:  "I'll  find 
him  for  you,  and  I'll  buy  him.  He'll  be  cheap  at  any 
price." 

He  bade  good  night  early  and  went  to  his  own  home, 
carrying  a  backload  of  trouble.  He  was  plainly  in  for  it. 
Whatever  happened,  he  was  the  scapegoat-elect. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

villain  in  melodrama  is  as  likely  as  not  to  be  as 
1  decent  a  fellow  as  any.  When  he  slinks  from  the 
stage  in  his  final  hissed  exit  he  goes  to  his  dressing-room, 
scours  off  his  grease-paint,  and  probably  returns  to  his  de- 
voted family  or  seats  himself  before  a  bowl  of  milk-and- 
crackers  in  his  club. 

Gilfoyle  was  as  decent  a  fellow  as  ever  villain  was. 
Circumstances  and  not  himself  cast  him  in  an  evil  r61e, 
and  as  actors  know,  once  so  established,  it  is  almost  im- 
possible to  return  to  heroic  parts.  Gilfoyle  could  not  even 
remove  his  grease-paint.  He  could  not  go  back  to  his 
dressing-room,  for  his  landlady  had  told  him  that  the  only 
key  to  her  front  door  was  cash.  He  had  gone  out  to  bring 
home  a  millionaire,  and  he  had  achieved  nothing  but  a 
headache  and  a  moral  cataclysm. 

He  hardly  knew  how  he  escaped  from  the  apartment- 
house.  The  dark  cool  of  the  street  brought  him  into  the 
night  of  things.  It  came  upon  him  like  a  black  fog  what 
he  had  tried  to  do.  The  bitter  disgrace  of  a  man  who  has 
been  whipped  in  a  fight  was  his,  but  other  disgraces  were 
heaped  upon  it.  For  the  first  time  he  saw  himself  as 
Kedzie  saw  him. 

He  had  neglected  his  wife  till  she  grew  famous  in  spite 
of  him.  He  had  gone  back  to  her  to  share  her  bounty. 
When  she  repulsed  him  he  had  entered  into  a  conspiracy 
to  spy  on  her.  He  had  waited  impatiently  for  a  rich  man 
to  compromise  her,  so  that  he  could  surprise  them  in  guilt 
and  extort  money  from  them. 

He  had  not  warned  the  girl  of  her  danger  from  the  other 

389 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

man  or  from  himself.  He  had  not  pleaded  with  her  to  be 
good,  had  not  asked  her  to  come  back  to  honeymoon  again 
in  poverty  with  him;  he  had  preferred  to  live  on  borrowed 
money  and  on  unpaid  board  while  he  fooled  with  verses 
and  refused  the  manual  tasks  that  waited  everywhere 
about  the  busy  city.  He  might  have  cleaned  the  streets 
or  earned  a  decent  living  handling  garbage  in  the  city 
scows.  But  he  had  preferred  to  speculate  in  blackmail 
and  play  the  badger-game  with  his  wife  as  an  unwitting 
accomplice.  He  had  hated  millionaires,  and  counted 
them  all  criminals  deserving  spoliation,  but  he  felt  that 
he  had  sunk  lower  than  the  millionaires. 

The  remembrance  of  Kedzie  haunted  him.  She  had 
been  supremely  beautiful  to-night,  frightened  into  greater 
beauty  than  ever.  She  was  afraid  of  him  who  should  have 
been  her  refuge,  and  she  hid  for  protection  behind  the  man 
who  should  have  seemed  her  enemy. 

He  recalled  her  as  she  was  when  he  first  loved  her,  the 
pretty  little  candy-store  clerk,  the  lissome,  living  marble  in 
her  Greek  tunic,  the  quaint,  sweet  girl  who  came  to  him 
in  the  Grand  Central  Terminal,  lugging  her  suit-case,  the 
shy  thing  at  the  License  Bureau,  the  ineffably  exquisite 
bride  he  had  made  his  wife.  He  saw  her  at  the  gas-stove 
and  loved  her  very  petulance  and  the  pretty  way  she 
banged  the  oven  door  and  pouted  at  fate. 

The  lyrics  he  had  written  to  her  sang  through  his 
aching  head.  He  was  wrung  to  anguish  between  the 
lover  and  the  poet  he  had  meant  to  be,  and  the  spurned 
and  hated  cur  he  had  become.  He  stumbled  along  the 
street  at  Connery's  side,  whispering  to  himself,  while 
his  earliest  verses  to  Kedzie  ran  in  and  out  through  his 
thoughts  like  a  catchy  tune: 

Pretty  maid,  pretty  maid,  may  I  call  you  Anita? 
Your  last  name  is  sweet,  but  your  first  name  is  sweeter. 

He  recalled  the  sonnets  he  had  begun  which  were  to 
make  them  both  immortal.  He  regretted  the  spitefulness 

390 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

that  had  led  him  to  write  in  another  name  than  hers 
because  she  had  refused  to  support  him.  He  had  been  a 
viler  beast  than  the  cutpurse  poet  of  old  France,  without 
the  lilies  of  verse  that  bloom  pure  white  above  the  dunghill 
of  Villon's  life. 

Gilfoyle's  soul  went  down  into  a  hell  of  regret  and 
wriggled  in  the  flames  of  self-condemnation.  He  grew 
maudlin  with  repentance  and  clung  to  his  friend  Connery 
with  odious  garrulity.  Connery  was  disgusted  with  him, 
but  he  was  afraid  to  leave  him  because  he  kept  sighing: 

"I  guess  the  river's  the  only  place  for  me  now." 

At  length  Connery  steered  him  into  a  saloon  for  medicine 
and  bought  him  a  stiff  bracer  of  whisky  and  vermouth. 
But  it  only  threw  Gilfoyle  into  deeper  befuddlement. 
He  was  like  Charles  Lamb,  in  that  a  thimbleful  of  alcohol 
affected  him  as  much  as  a  tumbler  another.  He  wanted 
to  tell  his  troubles  to  the  barkeeper,  and  Connery  had  to 
drag  him  away. 

In  the  hope  that  a  walk  in  the  air  might  help  to  steady 
him,  Connery  set  out  toward  his  own  boarding-house. 
They  started  across  Columbus  Avenue  under  the  pillars 
of  the  Elevated  tracks. 

Habituated  to  the  traffic  customs,  the  New-Yorker 
crossing  a  street  looks  to  the  left  for  traffic  till  he  gets  half- 
way across,  then  looks  to  the  right  for  traffic  bound  in  the 
opposite  direction.  Connery  led  Gilfoyle  to  the  middle  of 
the  avenue,  paused  for  a  south-bound  street-car  to  go 
banging  by  them,  darted  back  of  it  and  looked  to  the  right 
for  a  north-bound  car  or  motor.  But  a  taxicab  trying  to 
pass  the  south-bound  car  was  shooting  south  along  the 
north-bound  tracks. 

Connery  saw  it  barely  in  time  to  jump  back.  He 
yanked  Gilfoyle's  arm,  but  Gilfoyle  had  plunged  forward. 
He  might  have  escaped  if  Connery  had  let  him  go.  But 
the  cab  struck  him,  hurled  him  in  air  against  an  iron 
pillar,  caught  him  on  the  rebound  and  ran  him  down. 
Kedzie  Thropp  was  a  widow. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

DEATHS  from  the  wheeled  torpedoes  that  shoot  along 
the  city  streets  are  too  monotonously  numerous  to 
make  a  stir  in  the  newspapers  unless  the  victims  have 
some  other  claim  on  the  public  attention. 

Gilfoyle  had  been  writing  advertisements  of  other 
people's  wares,  but  nobody  was  going  to  pay  for  the 
advertisement  of  him.  The  things  that  he  might  have 
become  were  even  more  obscure  than  the  things  he  was. 
The  pity  of  his  taking-off  would  have  had  no  more  record 
than  a  few  lines  of  small  type,  but  for  one  further  accident. 

The  taxicab-driver  whose  reckless  haste  had  sent  him 
down  the  wrong  side  of  the  street  had  been  spurred  on  by 
the  reckless  haste  of  his  passenger.  The  pretty  Mrs. 
Twyford  had  been  for  years  encouraging  the  reporters  to 
emphasize  her  social  altitude,  and  had  seen  that  they 
obtained  her  photographs  at  frequent  intervals.  But  on 
this  night  she  had  gone  up-town  upon  one  of  the  few 
affairs  for  which  she  did  not  wish  publicity.  She  had 
learned  by  telephone  that  her  husband  had  returned  to 
New  York  unexpectedly,  and  she  was  intensely  impatient 
to  be  at  home  when  he  got  there. 

When  her  scudding  taxicab  solved  all  of  Gilfoyle's 
earthly  problems  in  one  fierce  erasure  she  made  such  ef- 
forts to  escape  from  the  instantly  gathered  crowd  that 
she  attracted  the  attention  of  the  policeman  who  happened 
to  be  at  the  next  corner.  He  proceeded  to  take  the  name 
and  addresses  of  witnesses  and  principals,  and  he  detained 
her  as  an  important  accessory. 

Connery  was  one  of  the  news-men  who  had  been  in- 

392 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

debted  to  Mrs.  Twyford  for  many  a  half -column  of  gossip, 
and  he  recognized  her  at  once.  He  was  a  reporter,  first, 
last,  and  all  the  time,  and  he  was  very  much  in  need  of 
something  to  sell. 

He  was  greatly  shattered  by  the  annihilation  of  his 
friend,  but  his  instinctive  journalism  led  him  to  control 
himself  long  enough  to  call  Mrs.  Twyford  by  name  and 
assure  the  policeman  that  she  was  a  lady  of  high  degree 
who  should  not  be  bothered 

Neither  the  policeman  nor  Mrs.  Twyford  thanked  him. 
They  were  equally  rude  to  him  and  to  each  other.  Con- 
nery  thought  the  incident  might  interest  the  night  city 
editor  of  his  paper,  and  so  he  telephoned  a  good  story  in 
to  the  office  as  soon  as  he  had  released  himself  from  the 
inquisition  and  had  seen  an  ambulance  carry  poor  Gilfoyle 
away. 

Mrs.  Twyford  reached  home  too  late,  and  in  such  a 
state  of  nerves  that  she  made  the  most  unconvincing 
replies  to  the  cross-examination  that  ensued.  When  she 
saw  her  name  in  the  paper  the  next  morning  her  friends 
also  began  to  make  inquiries — and  eventually  to  deny  that 
they  were  her  friends  or  had  ever  been. 

It  was  her  name  in  the  heavy  type  that  caught  the 
heavy  eyes  of  Jim  Dyckman  at  breakfast  the  next  morning. 
It  was  thus  that  he  came  upon  the  fate  of  Thomas  Gilfoyle, 
whose  death  had  been  the  cause  of  all  this  pother. 

Before  he  could  telephone  Anita — or  Kedzie,  as  he 
mentally  corrected  himself — he  was  informed  that  a  Mr. 
Connery  was  at  the  door,  asking  for  him.  He  nodded  and 
went  into  the  library,  carrying  the  newspaper  with  him. 

Connery  grinned  sadly  and  mumbled:  "I  see  you've 
seen  it.  I  thought  you'd  like  to  know  about  it." 

' '  I  should, ' '  said  Dyckman.     ' '  Sit  down. ' ' 

Connery  sat  down  and  told  of  the  accident  and  what 
led  up  to  it.  He  spoke  in  a  lowered  voice  and  kept  his  eye 
on  the  door.  When  he  had  finished  his  story  he  said, 
"Now,  of  course  this  all  comes  out  very  convenient  for 

393 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

you,  but  I  suppose  you  see  how  easy  it  would  be  for  me  to 
tell  what  I  know,  and  that  mightn't  be  so  convenient  for 
you." 

"Are  you  beginning  your  blackmail  again  so  early  in 
the  morning?" 

"Cut  out  that  kind  of  talk  or  there's  nothing  doing," 
said  Connery.  "I  can  make  a  lot  of  trouble  for  you,  and  I 
can  hush  up  a  lot.  Unless  I  speak  I  don't  suppose  any- 
body else  is  going  to  peep  about  Miss  Adair  being  Mrs. 
Gilfoyle,  and  about  Mr.  Dyckman  being  interested  in  his 
wife.  If  I  do  speak  it  would  take  a  lot  of  explaining." 

"I  am  not  afraid  of  explaining  to  the  whole  world  that 
Miss  Adair  is  a  friend  of  mine  and  that  her  father  and 
mother  were  present  when  I  called." 

Connery  met  this  with  a  smile.  "But  how  often  were 
they  present  when  you  called?" 

Dyckman  grew  belligerent  again:  "Do  you  want  me  to 
finish  what  I  began  on  you  last  night?" 

"I'm  in  no  hurry,  thank  you.  You  can  outclass  me  in 
the  ring,  but  it  wouldn't  help  you  much  to  beat  me  up, 
would  it  ? — or  Miss  Adair,  either.  She's  got  some  rights, 
hasn't  she?" 

"Has  she  any  that  you  are  capable  of  respecting?" 

"Sure  she  has.  I  don't  want  to  cause  the  little  lady  any 
inconvenience.  She  and  Tommie  Gilfoyle  didn't  belong 
together,  anyway.  She  was  through  with  him  long  ago, 
and  the  only  thing  that  saved  his  face  was  the  fact  that 
he's  dead — poor  fellow! 

"  But  you  see  I've  got  to  appear  as  a  witness  in  the  trial 
of  the  taxicab-driver,  who'll  be  held  for  manslaughter  or 
something.  If  I  say  that  Gilfoyle  and  I  had  just  come 
from  a  battle  with  you  and  that  he  got  the  wits  knocked 
^Hit  of  him  because  he  accused  you  of  making  a  mistres3 
out  of  his  -wife — " 

"Be  careful!" 

"The  same  to  you,  Mr.  Dyckman." 

Dyckman  felt  himself  nettled.  Kedzie's  silence  about 

394 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

the  existence  of  a  husband  had  enmeshed  him.  He  would 
rot  attempt  to  justify  himself.  It  would  do  no  good  to 
thresh  about.  The  big  gladiator  sat  still  waiting  for  the 
retiarius  to  finish  him.  But  Connery's  voice  grew  merci- 
ful. It  was  a  luxury  beyond  price  to  extend  an  alms  to 
this  plutocrat. 

"What  I'm  getting  at,  Mr.  Dyckman,"  he  resumed,  "is 
this:  Tommie  owed  some  money  to  his  landlady.  He 
owed  me  some  money  that  I  could  use.  He's  got  a  mother 
and  father  up-State.  He  told  me  he'd  never  told  them 
about  his  marriage.  They'll  want  him  back,  I  suppose. 
From  what  he's  told  me,  it  would  be  a  real  hardship  for 
them  to  pay  the  funeral  expenses.  You  could  pay  all 
that,  and  you  could  even  say  that  he  had  a  little  money  in 
the  bank  and  send  that  along  with  him,  and  never  know 
the  difference.  But  they  would." 

"I  see,"  said  Dyckman,  very  solemnly. 

"You  called  me  some  rough  names,  Mr.  Dyckman,  and 
I  guess  I  earned  'em.  Looking  things  over  the  morning 
after,  I'm  not  so  stuck  on  myself  as  I  was,  but  you  stack 
up  pretty  well.  I  like  a  man  who  can  use  his  hands  in  an 
argument.  My  name  is  Connery,  you  know.  What  you 
did  to  me  was  a  plenty,  but  it  looks  better  to  me  now  than 
it  felt  last  night. 

"  You  know  a  reporter  just  gets  naturally  hungry  to  see 
a  man  face  a  scandal  in  a  manly  way.  If  you  had  shown 
a  yellow  streak  and  tried  to  buy  your  way  out  I  would 
have  taken  your  money  and  thought  I  was  doing  a  public 
service  in  getting  it  away  from  a  quitter.  But  when  you 
cracked  my  bean  against  poor  Gilfoyle's  you  made  me  see 
a  lot  of  things  besides  stars. 

"There's  nothing  to  be  gained  by  keeping  up  this  war. 
I  want  to  put  it  all  out  of  sight  for  your  sake  and  for 
Gilfoyle's  mother's  sake,  and  for  the  sake  of  that  pretty 
little  Adair  lady.  I  don't  know  what  she's  been  or  done, 
but  she's  pretty  and  she's  got  a  nice,  spunky  mother. 

"I'm  a  good  newspaper  man,  Mr.  Dyckman,  and  that 

395 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

means  I've  kept  quiet  about  even  better  stories  than  I've 
sprung.  If  I  had  a  lot  of  money  now  I'd  add  this  story 
to  the  list  and  treat  Gilfoyle's  folks  right  without  giving 
you  a  look-in.  But  being  dead-broke,  I  thought  maybe 
you'd  like  to  see  things  done  in  a  decent  manner.  It's 
going  to  be  hard  enough  for  that  old  couple  up-State  to 
get  Tommie  back,  as  they've  got  to,  without  taking  any 
excess  heartbreak  up  in  the  baggage-car.  Do  you  follow 
me?" 

"I  do,"  said  Dyckman;  and  now  he  asked  the  "How 
much?"  that  he  had  refused  to  speak  the  night  before. 

Connery  did  a  little  figuring  with  a  pencil,  and  Dyckman 
thought  that  some  life-insurance  in  the  mother's  name 
would  be  a  pleasant  thing  to  add.  Then  he  doubled  the 
total,  wrote  a  check  for  it,  and  said: 

"There'll  probably  be  something  left  over.  I  wish 
you'd  keep  it  as  your — attorney-fee,  Mr.  Connery." 

They  shook  hands  as  they  parted. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

F^vYCKMAN  telephoned  to  Kedzie  and  asked  if  he 
.L/  could  see  her.  She  said  that  he  could,  and  dressed 
furiously  while  he  made  the  distance  to  her  apartment. 

She  gleaned  from  his  look  and  from  the  way  he  took  her 
two  hands  in  his  that  he  had  serious  news  to  bring  her. 
She  had  not  been  awake  long  enough  to  read  the  papers, 
and  this  was  her  first  death.  She  cried  helplessly  when 
she  learned  that  her  husband  was  gone  away  with  all 
her  bitterness  for  his  farewell.  She  remembered  the  best 
of  him,  and  he  came  back  to  her  for  a  while  as  the  poet 
who  had  made  her  his  muse — the  only  one  she  could  tele- 
graph to  when  she  returned  to  New  York  alone,  her  first 
and  only  husband. 

She  was  afraid  that  she  belittled  herself  in  Dyckman's 
eyes  when  she  let  slip  the  remorseful  wail,  "I  wish  I  had 
been  kinder  to  the  poor  boy!" 

But  she  did  not  belittle  herself  in  any  such  tendernesses 
of  regret.     She  endeared  herself  by  her  grief,  her  self- 
reproach,  her  childish  humility  before  the  power  of  death. 
Her  tears  were  beautiful  in  Jim's  sight.     But  it  is  the  bless-  \ 
;    ing  and  the  shame  of  tears  that  they  cure  the  grief  that  <- 
causes  them.     At  first  they  bleed  and  burn;    then  they 
flow  soft  and  cool.     They  cleanse  and  brighten  the  eyes 
and  even  wash  away  the  cinders  from  the  funeral  smoke. 

Dyckman's  heart  was  drawn  out  of  him  toward  Kedzie 
and  his  arms  held  her  shaken  body  devotedly.  But  at 
length  she  ceased  to  weep,  and  a  last  long  sob  became 
dangerously  like  a  sigh  of  relief.  She  smiled  through  the 
rain  and  apologized  for  weeping,  when  she  should  have 

397 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

apologized  for  stopping  weeping.  Then  Dyckman's  love 
of  her  seemed  to  withdraw  backward  into  his  heart. 
And  his  arms  suddenly  wearied  of  clasping  her. 

When  she  had  seemed  hardly  to  know  that  he  was  there 
he  felt  necessary  and  justified.  When  she  took  comfort 
in  his  arms  and  held  them  about  her  he  felt  ashamed, 
revolted,  profane. 

Mrs.  Thropp  had  wept  a  little  in  sympathy  with 
Kedzie,  and  Adna  had  looked  amiably  disconsolate;  but 
by  and  by  Mrs.  Thropp  was  murmuring: 

"After  all,  perhaps  it  was  for  the  best.  The  Lord's  will 
be  done!" 

Dyckman  shrank  as  if  a  blasphemy  had  been  shouted. 
In  a  hideously  short  time  Mrs.  Thropp  was  saying,  briskly: 

"Of  course,  honey,  you've  got  no  idea  of  puttin'  on 
black  for  him." 

"If  I  believed  in  mourning,  I  would,"  Kedzie  answered  > 
without  delay,  "but  the  true  mourning  is  in  the  heart." 

Dyckman  felt  an  almost  uncontrollable  desire  to  get 
away  before  he  said  something  that  might  be  true.  He 
began  to  wonder  what,  after  all,  poor  Gilfoyle  had  ex- 
perienced from  this  hard-hearted  little  beauty.  He  saw 
that  he  was  almost  forgotten  already.  He  thought, 
"How  fast  they  go,  the  dead!"  That  same  Villon  had 
said  it  centuries  before:  "Les  morts  vont  vites." 

The  Thropps  settled  down  to  a  comfortable  discussion 
of  future  plans.  One  ledger  had  been  finished.  They 
would  open  a  new  one.  Jim  saw  that  Gilfoyle's  departure 
had  been  accepted  as  a  Heaven-sent  solution  of  Kedzie's 
problems. 

Abruptly  it  came  to  Dyckman  that  the  solution  of  their 
problem  was  the  beginning  of  a  whole  volume  of  new  prob- 
lems for  him.  He  recalled  that  while  he  had  become 
Kedzie's  fiance"  in  ignorance  of  his  predecessor,  he  had 
rashly  promised  to  buy  off  Gilfoyle  as  soon  as  he  learned 
of  him.  But  death  had  come  in  like  a  perfect  waiter  and 
subtly  removed  from  the  banquet-table  the  thing  that 

398 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

offended.  Nothing  had  happened,  however,  to  release 
Dyckman  from  his  engagement.  Gilfoyle's  death  ought 
not  to  have  made  a  more  important  difference  than  his  life 
would  have  made,  and  yet  it  made  all  the  difference  in  the 
world  to  Dyckman's  feelings. 

He  could  not  say  this,  however.  He  could  not  ask  to 
be  excused  from  his  compact.  His  heart  and  his  brain 
cried  out  that  they  did  not  want  this  merry  little  widow 
for  their  wife,  but  his  lips  could  not  frame  the  words. 
During  the  long  silences  and  the  evasive  chatter  that 
alternated  he  felt  one  idea  in  the  air:  "Why  doesn't 
Mr.  Dyckman  offer  to  go  on  with  the  marriage?"  Yet  he 
could  not  make  the  offer.  Nor  could  he  make  the  counter- 
claim for  a  dissolving  of  the  betrothal. 

He  studied  the  Thropp  trio  and  pictured  the  ridicule 
and  the  hostility  they  would  arouse  among  his  family  and 
friends — not  because  they  were  poor  and  simple  and  lowly, 
but  because  they  were  not  honest  and  sweet  and  meek. 
The  Dyckmans  had  poor  relations  and  friends  in  poverty 
and  old  peasant-folk  whom  they  loved  and  admired  and 
were  proud  to  know.  But  Dyckman  felt  that  the  elder 
Thropps  deserved  to  be  rebuffed  with  snobbery  because 
of  their  own  snobbery.  Nevertheless,  he  was  absolutely 
incapable  of  administering  discipline. 

At  last  Mrs.  Thropp  grew  restive,  fearsome  that  the  mar- 
riage might  not  take  place,  and  desperately  fearful  that 
she  might  be  cheated  out  of  her  visit  in  the  spare  room 
at  the  home  of  the  great  Mrs.  Dyckman.  She  said,  grimly: 

"Well,  we  might  as  well  understand  one  another, 
Mr.  Dyckman.  You  asked  my  daughter  to  marry  you, 
didn't  you?" 

"Yes,  Mrs.  Thropp." 

"Do  you  see  anything  in  what's  happened  to  prevent 
your  getting  married?" 

"No,  Mrs.  Thropp." 

"Then  I  don't  see  much  use  wastin'  time,  do  you? 
Life's  too  uncertain  to  go  postponin'  happiness  when  it's 

399 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

right  within  your  reach.  Kedzie's  father  and  I  ought  to 
be  gettin'  back  home,  and  I'd  feel  a  heap  more  comfortable 
if  I  could  know  my  poor  little  chick  was  safe  in  the  care 
of  a  good  man." 

The  possibility  of  getting  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thropp  out  of 
town  soon  was  the  one  bright  thought  in  Dyckman's 
mind.  He  felt  compelled  to  say: 

"Then  let  us  have  the  ceremony,  by  all  means.  We 
shall  have  to  wait  awhile,  I  suppose,  for  decency's  sake." 

"Decency!"  said  Mrs.  Thropp,  managerially.  "My 
Kedzie  hadn't  lived  with  the  man  for  a  long  while.  No- 
body but  us  knows  that  she  ever  did  live  with  him.  He'd 
abandoned  her,  and  when  he  came  back  it  was  only  to 
try  to  get  money  out  of  her.  I  can't  see  that  she  has  any 
call  to  worry  about  decency's  sake.  He's  done  her  harm 
enough.  She  can't  do  him  any  good  by  keepin'  you 
waitin'." 

"Just  as  you  think  best,  Mrs.  Thropp,"  said  Dyckman. 
He  began  to  smile  in  spite  of  himself.  He  was  thinking 
how  many  mothers  and  daughters  had  tried  to  get  him 
to  the  altar,  not  because  they  loved  him,rbut  because  they 
loved  his  father's  money  and  fame.  Jim  had  dodged  them 
all  and  made  a  kind  of  sport  of  it.  And  now  he  was 
cornered  and  captured  by  this  old  barbarian  with  her 
movie-beauty  daughter  who  was  a  widow  and  wouldn't 
wear  weeds. 

Mrs.  Thropp  saw  Dyckman's  smile,  but  did  not  dare 
to  ask  its  origin.  She  asked,  instead: 

"Would  you  be  having  a  church  wedding,  do  you 
think?" 

"Indeed  not,"  said  Dyckman,  with  such  incision  that 
Mrs.  Thropp  felt  it  best  not  to  risk  a  debate. 

"Just  a  quiet  wedding,  then?" 

"As  quiet  as  possible,  if  you  don't  mind." 

Kedzie  sat  speechless  through  all  this.  She  wished  that 
Jim  would  show  more  ardor  for  her,  but  she  felt  that  he 
was  doing  fairly  well  not  to  knock  her  parents'  heads 

400 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

together  the  way  he  had  her  husband's  and  his  friend's. 
She  was  as  eager  as  Jim  to  get  rid  of  the  elder  Thropps, 
but  she  wanted  to  make  sure  of  the  wedding,  and  her 
mother  was  evidently  to  be  trusted  to  bring  it  about. 
At  length  Jim  spoke  in  the  tone  of  the  condemned  man 
who  says,  "Well,  let's  hurry  up  and  get  the  execution  off 
our  minds": 

"  I'll  go  and  see  a  lawyer  and  make  inquiries  about  how 
the  marriage  can  be  done." 

He  started  to  say  to  Kedzie,  "You  ought  to  know." 

She  started  to  tell  him  about  the  Marriage  License 
Bureau  in  the  Municipal  Building.  Both  recaptured 
silence  tactfully. 

He  kissed  Kedzie,  and  he  had  a  narrow  escape  from 
being  kissed  by  Mrs.  Thropp. 


THE    THIRD    BOOK 

MRS.    JIM    DYCKMAN    IS    NOT 
SATISFIED 


CHAPTER  I 

IN  the  history  of  nations  sometimes  a  paragraph  serves 
for  a  certain  decade,  while  a  volume  is  not  enough  for  a 
certain  day.  It  is  so  with  the  history  of  persons. 

In  the  thirty-six  hours  after  he  received  Charity  Coe's 
invitation  to  call  Jim  Dyckman  passed  from  being  Char- 
ity's champion  against  her  own  husband  to  being  Kedzie's 
champion  against  hers.  Charity  rewarded  his  chivalrous 
pommeling  of  Cheever  by  asking  him  never  to  come  near 
her  again.  Kedzie  rewarded  his  punishment  of  Gilfoyle 
by  arranging  that  he  should  never  leave  her  again. 

It  was  Charity  that  he  longed  for,  and  Kedzie  that  he 
engaged  to  marry. 

In  that  period  Peter  Cheever  had  traveled  a  very  short 
distance  in  a  journey  he  had  postponed  too  long.  Cheever 
had  been  hardly  conscious  when  they  smuggled  him  at 
midnight  from  his  club  to  his  own  home.  He  had  slept  ill 
and  achily.  He  was  ashamed  to  face  the  servants,  and 
he  wanted  to  murder  his  valet  for  being  aware  of  the 
master's  defeat. 

He  did  not  know  how  ashamed  the  household  retainers 
were  of  him  and  of  themselves.  The  valet  aad  butler  had 
earned  good  sums  on  occasions  by  taking  tips  from 
Cheever  on  prize-fighters  and  jockeys.  But  they  felt  be- 
trayed now,  and  as  disconsolate  as  the  bottle-holders  and 
towel-flappers  of  a  defeated  pugilist. 

They  did  not  know  who  had  whipped  their  master  till 
the  word  came  from  the  Dyckman  household  that  their 
master  had  come  home  glorious  from  whipping  the 

405 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

stuffing  out  of  somebody.  It  was  easy  to  put  one  and  one 
together  and  make  two. 

One  of  Cheever's  worst  embarrassments  was  the  matter 
of  Zada.  His  battered  head  suffered  tortures  before  it 
contrived  a  proper  lie  for  her.  Then  he  called  Zada  up 
from  his  house  and  explained  that  as  he  was  leaving  his 
club  to  fly  to  her,  his  car  had  skidded  into  another,  with 
the  result  that  he  had  been  knocked  senseless  and  cut 
up  with  flying  glass;  otherwise  he  was  in  perfect  shape. 
Unfortunately,  he  had  been  recognized  and  taken  to  his 
official  home  instead  of  to  the  residence  of  his  heart. 

Zada  was  all  for  dashing  to  him  at  once;  but  he  per- 
suaded her  that  that  would  be  quite  impossible.  He  was 
in  no  real  danger  in  his  own  house,  and  he  would  come 
back  to  his  heart's  one  real  first,  last,  only,  and  onliest 
darling  love  just  as  soon  as  he  could. 

She  subsided  in  wails  of  terror  and  loneliness.  They 
touched  his  heart  so  that  he  determined  to  end  his  effort 
at  amphibian  existence,  give  up  his  legal  establishment 
and  legalize  the  illegal. 

He  wrote  a  note  to  Charity  with  much  difficulty,  since 
his  knuckles  were  sore  and  his  pride  was  black  and  blue. 
His  spoken  language  was  of  the  same  tints.  His  written 
language  was  polite  and  formal. 

It  was  a  silly,  tragic  situation  that  led  a  husband  to 
write  his  wife  a  letter  requesting  an  interview.  Charity 
sent  back  a  scrawl — "  Yes,  in  fifteen  minutes." 

Cheever  spent  a  bad  quarter  of  an  hour  dressing  him- 
self. His  face  was  too  raw  to  endure  a  razor,  and  the  sur- 
geon had  put  little  cross-patches  of  adhesive  tape  on  one 
of  his  cheek-bones  and  at  the  edge  of  his  mouth,  where  his 
lip  had  split  as  the  tooth  behind  it  went  overboard. 

He  yowled  as  he  slipped  his  arms  into  a  long  bath- 
robe, and  he  struck  at  the  valet  when  the  wretch  suggested 
a  little  powder  for  one  eye. 

Charity  had  seen  Cheever  brought  in  at  midnight  and 
had  looked  to  it  that  he  had  every  care.  But  now  she 

406 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

came  into  his  room  with  a  maidenly  timidity.  He  did 
not  know  that  she  had  rebuked  Jim  Dyckman  with  un- 
characteristic wrath  for  the  attack.  She  did  not  tell 
Cheever  this,  even  though  his  first  words  to  her  demanded 
some  such  defense. 

In  the  quarrels  of  lovers,  or  of  those  who  have  exchanged 
loves,  it  makes  little  difference  what  the  accusation  is  all 
about:  the  thing  that  hurts  is  the  fact  of  accusation. 

Charity  was  so  shamed  at  being  stormed  at  by  her 
husband  that  it  was  a  mere  detail  that  he  stormed  at  her 
with  a  charge  that  she  had  goaded  Jim  Dyckman  on  to 
attack  him. 

Cheever  had  a  favor  to  ask;  so  he  put  the  charge  more 
mildly  now  than  he  had  in  his  first  bewildered  rage.  He 
accepted  Charity's  silence  as  pleading  guilty.  So  he  went 
on: 

"The  fact  that  you  chose  Dyckman  for  your  authorized 
thug  and  bravo  proves  what  I  have  thought  for  some  time, 
that  you  love  him  and  he  loves  you.  Now  I  have  no 
desire  to  come  between  two  such  turtle-doves,  especially 
when  one  of  them  is  one  of  those  German  flying-machine 
Taubes  and  goes  around  dropping  dynamite-bombs  on 
me  through  club  roofs. 

"I'm  not  afraid  of  your  little  friend,  and  as  soon  as  I 
get  well  I'll  get  him;  but  I  want  it  to  be  purely  an  exercise 
in  the  fistic  art,  and  not  a  public  fluttering  of  family  linen. 
So  since  you  want  Jim  Dyckman,  take  him,  by  all  means, 
and  let  me  bow  myself  out  of  the  trio. 

"I'll  give  you  a  nice,  quiet  little  divorce,  and  do  the 
fair  thing  in  the  alimony  line,  and  then  after  a  proper  in- 
terval you  and  little  Jimmie  can  toddle  over  to  the  parson 
and  then  toddle  off  to  hell-and-gone,  for  all  I  care.  How 
does  that  strike  you,  my  dear?" 

Charity  pondered,  and  then  she  said,  "And  where  do 
you  toddle  off  to?" 

"Does  that  interest  you?" 

"Anything  that  concerns  your  welfare  interests  me." 

407 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"I  see.     Well,  don't  worry  about  me." 

"There's  no  hurry,  of  course?" 

' '  Not  on  my  part, ' '  said  Cheever .  ' '  But  Dyckman  must 
be  growing  impatient,  since  he  tries  to  murder  me  to  save 
the  lawyer's  fees." 

"Well,  if  you're  in  no  hurry,  Peter,  I'm  not.  I'll  think 
it  over  for  a  few  months.  It's  bad  weather  for  divorces 
now,  anyway." 

Cheever 's  heart  churned  in  his  breast.  He  knew  that 
Zada  could  not  afford  to  wait.  He  should  have  married 
her  long  ago,  and  there  was  no  time  to  spare  now.  Char- 
ity's indifference  frightened  him.  He  did  not  dream  that 
through  the  dictagraph  Charity  had  shared  with  him 
Zada's  annunciation  of  her  approaching  motherhood. 

He  turned  and  twisted  in  flesh  and  spirit,  trying  to 
persuade  Charity  to  proceed  immediately  for  a  divorce, 
but  in  vain. 

Finally  she  ceased  to  laugh  at  him  and  demanded, 
sternly,  "Why  don't  you  tell  me  the  truth  for  once?" 

He  stared  at  her,  and  after  a  crisis  of  hesitation  broke 
and  informed  her  of  what  she  already  knew.  Now  that 
he  was  at  her  feet,  Charity  felt  only  pity  for  him,  and 
even  for  Zada.  She  was  sorrier  for  them  than  for  herself. 

So  she  said:  "All  right,  old  man;  let's  divorce  us. 
Will  you  or  shall  I?" 

"You'd  better,  of  course;  but  you  must  not  mention 
poor  Zada." 

"Oh,  of  course  not!" 

A  brief  and  friendly  discussion  of  ways  and  means  fol- 
lowed, and  then  Charity  turned  to  go,  saying : 

"Well,  I'll  let  you  know  when  you're  free.  Are  there 
any  other  little  chores  I  can  do  for  you?" 

"No,  thanks.  You're  one  damned  good  sport,  and  I'm 
infernally  sorry  I — " 

"Let's  not  begin  on  sorries.     Good  night!" 

And  such  was  unmarriage  d  la  mode. 


CHAPTER   II 

AMD  now  having  felt  sorry  for  everybody  else,  Charity 
began  to  feel  pleasantly  sorry  for  Jim  Dyckman.  Her 
own  rebuke  of  him  for  assaulting  Cheever  had  absolved 
him.  In  the  retrospect,  the  attack  took  on  a  knightli- 
ness  of  devotion.  She  recalled  his  lonely  dogging  of  her 
footsteps.  If  he  had  played  the  dog,  after  all,  she  loved 
dogs.  What  was  so  faithful,  trustworthy,  and  lovable  as 
a  dog? 

But  how  was  Charity  to  get  word  to  Jim  of  her  new 
heart?  She  could  not  whistle  him  back.  She  could 
hardly  go  to  him  and  apologize  for  having  been  a  good 
wife  to  a  bad  husband.  And  a  married  lady  simply  must 
not  say  to  a  bachelor:  "Pardon  me  a  moment,  while  I 
divorce  my  present  consort.  I'd  like  to  wear  your  name 
for  a  change." 

Charity  might  have  been  capable  even  of  such  a  derring- 
do  if  she  had  known  that  Jim  Dyckman's  bachelorhood 
was  threatened  with  immediate  extinction  by  the  Thropps. 
But  she  could  not  know.  For,  however  Jim's  soul  may 
have  been  mumbling,  "Help,  help!"  he  made  no  audible 
sound.  Unwilling  brides  may  shriek  for  rescue,  but  un- 
willing bridegrooms  must  not  complain. 

'By  a  coincidence  that  was  not  strange  Charity  selected 
for  her  lawyer  Travers  McNiven,  the  very  man  that  Jim 
Dyckman  selected.  All  three  had  been  friends  since 
childhood.  McNiven  had  been  taken  into  the  famous 
partnership  of  Hamnett,  Dawsey,  Coggeshall,  Thurlow  & 
McNiven. 

When  Jim  Dyckman  telephoned  him  for  an  appoint- 

409 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

merit  he  was  told  to  make  it  the  next  morning,  as  another 
client  had  pre-empted  the  afternoon.  Jim  was  glad 
enough  of  an  excuse  to  postpone  his  marriage  by  a  day, 
never  dreaming  that  Charity  was  the  client  who  had  pre- 
empted McNiven. 

McNiven  wondered  at  the  synchrony,  but  naturally 
mentioned  neither  client  to  the  other.  His  office  was  far 
down-town  and  far  up  in  the  air.  Its  windows  gave  an 
amplitudinous  vision  of  the  Harbor  which  Mr.  Ernest 
Poole  has  made  his  own,  but  which  was  now  a  vestibule 
to  the  hell  of  the  European  war.  All  the  adjoining  land 
was  choked  far  backward  with  a  vast  blockade  of  explosive 
freight-trains  waiting  to  be  unloaded  into  the  unheard-of 
multitude  of  munition-ships  waiting  to  run  the  gantlet 
of  the  German  submarines. 

Charity  had  run  that  gantlet  and  was  ready  to  run  it 
again  on  another  errand  of  mercy,  but  first  she  must  make 
sure  that  Zada's  baby  should  not  enter  the  world  before  its 
mother  entered  wedlock. 

After  McNiven  had  proffered  her  a  chair  and  she  had 
exclaimed  upon  the  grandeur  of  the  harborscape,  she 
began : 

"Sandy,  I've  come  to  see  you  about — " 

' '  One  moment !' '  McNiven  broke  in.  ' '  Before  you  speak 
I  must  as  an  honest  lawyer  warn  you  against  the  step 
you  contemplate." 

"But  you  don't  know  what  it  is  yet." 

"  I  don't  have  to.  I  know  that  people  come  to  lawyers 
only  to  get  out  of  scrapes  or  to  get  into  scrapes  dishonestly 
or  unwisely.  Furthermore,  every  step  that  any  human 
being  contemplates  is  a  dangerous  one  and  bound  to  lead 
to  trouble." 

"Oh,  hush!"  said  Charity.  "Am  I  supposed  to  pay 
you  for  that  sort  of  advice?" 

"Being  a  friend,  and  a  woman,  and  very  rich,  you  will 
doubtless  never  pay  me  at  all.  But  let  me  warn  you, 
Charity,  that  there  is  nothing  in  life  more  dangerous  than 

410 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

taking  a  step  in  any  possible  direction — unless  it  is  staying 
where  you  are." 

"Oh,  dear,"  sighed  Charity,  "you're  worse  than  dear 
Doctor  Mosely." 

"Ah,  you've  been  to  the  dear  old  doctor!  And  he's 
refused  to  help  you.  When  the  Church  denies  a  woman 
her  way  she  conies  to  the  devil.  You  interest  me.  It's 
a  divorce,  then?" 

"Yes." 

McNiven  remembered  Jim  Dyckman's  ancient  squire- 
dom to  Charity  and  his  recent  telephony  and  he  said  to 
himself,  "Aha!"  But  he  said  to  Charity,  "Go  on." 

"Sandy,  my  husband  and  I  have  agreed  to  disagree." 

"Then  for  Heaven's  sake  don't  tell  me  about  it!" 

"But  I've  got  to." 

"But  you  mustn't!  Say,  rather,  I  have  decided  to 
divorce  my  husband." 

"All  right.  Consider  my  first  break  unmade.  Peter 
has  asked  me — I  mean,  Peter  has  said  that  he  will  furnish 
me  with  the  evidence  on  one  condition:  that  I  shall  not 
mention  a  certain  person  with  whom  he  has  been  living. 
He  offers  to  provide  me  with  any  sort  of  evidence  you 
lawyers  care  to  cook  up." 

McNiven  stared  at  her  and  spoke  with  startling  rigor. 
"  Are  you  trying  to  involve  me  in  your  own  crimes?" 

"Don't  be  silly.     Peter  says  it  is  done  all  the  time." 

"Not  in  this  office.  Do  you  think  I'd  risk  and  deserve 
disbarment  even  to  oblige  a  friend?" 

"You  mean  you  won't  help  me,  then?"  Charity  sighed, 
rising  with  a  forlorn  sense  of  friendlessness. 

McNiven  growled :  "Sit  down !  Of  course  I'll  help  you, 
but  I  don't  intend  to  let  you  drag  me  into  ruin,  and  I  won't 
help  you  get  a  divorce  that  would  be  disallowed  at  the 
first  peep  of  light." 

"What  can  I  do  then?  Peter  said  it  could  be  man- 
aged quickly  and  quietly." 

"There  are  ways  and  ways,  Charity  Coe.  The  great 

411 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

curse  of  divorce  is  the  awful  word  'collusion.'  It  can  be 
avoided  as  other  curses  can  with  a  little  attention  to  the 
language.  Remember  the  old  song,  '  It's  not  so  much  the 
thing  you  say,  as  the  nasty  way  you  say  it.'  That  hound 
of  a  husband  of  yours  wants  to  protect  that  creature  he 
has  been  flaunting  before  the  world.  So  he  offers  to 
arrange  to  be  caught  in  a  trap  with  another  woman,  and 
make  you  a  present  of  the  evidence.  Isn't  that  so?" 

"I  believe  it  is." 

"Now  the  law  says  that  'any  understanding  pre- 
ceding the  act  of  adultery'  is  collusion;  it  involves 
the  committing  of  a  crime.  It  would  be  appalling 
for  a  nice  little  body  like  you  to  connive  at  such  a 
thing,  wouldn't  it?" 

Charity  turned  pale.  "I  hadn't  realized  just  what 
it  meant." 

"I  thought  not,"  said  McNiven. 

"He'll  have  to  give  me  evidence  of — of  something  that 
has  already  happened,  then,  won't  he?" 

"The  law  calls  that  collusion  alse." 

"Then  what  am  I  to  do?" 

"Couldn't  you  get  evidence  somehow  without  taking 
it  from  him?" 

Charity  was  about  to  shake  her  head,  but  she  nodded  it 
violently.  She  remembered  the  detectives  she  had  en- 
gaged and  the  superabundant  evidence  they  had  furnished 
her.  She  told  McNiven  about  it  and  he  was  delighted  till 
she  reminded  him  that  she  had  promised  not  to  make  use 
of  Zada's  name. 

McNiven  told  her  that  she  had  no  other  recourse,  and 
advised  her  to  see  her  husband.  She  said  that  it  was 
hopeless  and  she  expressed  a  bitter  opinion  of  the  law.  It 
seemed  harsher  than  the  Church,  especially  harsh  to  those 
who  did  not  flout  its  authority. 

While  Charity  talked  McNiven  let  his  pipe-smoke  trail 
out  of  the  window  into  the  infinite  where  dreams  fade 
from  reality  and  often  from  memory,  and  he  thought, 

412 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"If  I  can  help  Jim  and  Charity  to  get  together  after  all 
this  blundering  it  will  be  a  good  job." 

He  was  tempted  to  tell  her  that  Jim  was  coming  to  see 
him,  too,  but  he  was  afraid  that  she  knew  it.  If  he  had 
told  her — but  there  goes  that  eternal  "if"  again! 


CHAPTER  III 

IT  is  a  fierce  and  searching  test  of  a  woman's  mettle 
when  first  she  is  confronted  with  temptation  to  rebel 
against  the  control  of  her  preacher.     Men  are  used  to  it, 
and  women  must  grow  more  and  more  used  to  it  as  they 
advance  into  their  long-deferred  heritage. 

Charity  Coe  Cheever  was  religious  by  every  instinct. 
From  childhood  she  had  thrilled  to  the  creed  and  the 
music  and  the  eloquence  of  her  Sundays.  The  beautiful 
industries  of  Christianity  had  engaged  her.  She  had  been 
happy  within  the  walls  and  had  felt  that  her  piety  gave 
her  wings  rather  than  chains. 

And  then  she  came  abruptly  to  the  end  of  her  tether. 
She  found  her  soul  revolted  by  a  situation  which  her 
pastor  commanded  her  to  accept  as  her  lifelong  portion. 
She  found  that  to  tolerate,  and  by  tolerating  to  collaborate 
in,  the  adultery  of  her  husband  and  his  mistress  was  better 
religion  than  to  free  herself  from  odious  triplicity.  She 
found  that  it  was  better  religion  to  annul  her  womanhood 
and  remain  childless,  husbandless,  and  comfortless  than 
to  claim  the  privileges,  the  freedoms,  the  renewing  oppor- 
tunities the  law  allowed. 

She  came  suddenly  face  to  face  with  the  terrifying 
fact  that  the  State  offered  her  help  and  strength  that  the 
Church  denied  her. 

She  had  reached  indeed  what  the  doleful  balladists 
would  call  "the  parting  of  the  ways,"  though  no  poet 
has  yet  chosen  for  his  heroine  the  distraught  wretch  who 
is  driven  to  the  bleak  refuge  of  divorce. 

414 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

So  long  as  it  concerned  only  her  own  happiness  Charity 
could  put  away  the  choice.  But  the  more  she  pondered 
that  unless  she  divorced  her  husband  his  mistress's  baby 
would  come  into  the  world  with  a  hideous  birthmark,  the 
more  she  felt  it  her  duty  to  flout  the  Church.  She  shud- 
dered to  think  of  the  future  for  that  baby,  especially  if  it 
should  be  a  girl.  She  felt  curiously  a  mother-obligation 
toward  it.  She  blamed  herself  for  her  husband's  in- 
fidelity. She  humbled  herself  and  bowed  her  neck  to  the 
shame. 

She  left  the  Church  and  went  to  the  law.  And  then 
she  found  that  the  law  had  its  own  cruelties,  its  own 
fetters  and  walls  and  loopholes  and  hypocrisies.  She 
found  that  it  is  not  even  possible  to  be  a  martyr  and 
retain  all  one's  dignity.  One  cannot  even  go  to  the  stake 
without  some  guile. 

The  wicked  law  which  the  Church  abhorred  had  its  own 
idea  of  wickedness,  and  in  the  eyes  of  the  law  the  agree- 
ment of  a  husband  and  a  wife  to  part  was  something 
loathsome.  She  expressed  her  amazement  to  McNiven. 

"It  seems  to  me,"  she  sighed,  "if  both  husband  and 
wife  want  a  divorce,  they  know  best;  and  that  fact  ought 
to  be  sufficient  grounds  in  itself.  And  yet  you  tell  me 
that  if  the  law  once  gets  wind  of  the  fact  they've  got  to 
live  together  forever." 

"That's  it.  They've  got  to  live  together  whether  they 
love  together  or  not — though  of  course  you  can  get  a 
separation  very  easily,  on  almost  any  ground." 

"But  a  separation  is  only  a  guarantee  of — of  infidelity, 
I  should  think." 

"Of  course  it  is,"  said  Lawyer  McNiven. 

"Then  everything  seems  all  wrong." 

"Of  course  it  is." 

"Then  why  doesn't  somebody  correct  it?" 

"Who's  going  to  bell  the  cat?  Anybody  who  advo- 
cates divorce  by  mutual  consent  is  sure  to  be  lynched 
more  or  less  fatally,  and  especially  lynched  by  the  very 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

people  who    are   making   a   mockery  of   matrimony   in 
their  own  lives. 

"One  marriage  in  twelve  in  the  United  States  ends  in 
divorce.  You'll  not  find  anybody  who  dares  to  say  that 
that  is  not  a  crying  scandal.  Yet  you  and  I  know  that 
home  life  in  America  is  as  pure  and  honorable  as  in  any 
other  country.  I'm  an  awful  heathen,  of  course,  but 
I'll  bet  you  I'm  a  true  prophet  when  I  say  that  divorce 
will  increase  as  the  world  goes  on,  instead  of  decreasing, 
and  that  in  all  the  countries  where  divorce  is  forbidden 
or  restricted  it  will  grow  freer  and  freer.  Statistics  prove 
it  all  over  the  globe." 

To  Charity  Coe,  the  devout  churchwoman,  this  pict- 
ure was  appalling. 

"Oh,  in  Heaven's  name,  what  will  happen?  The  world 
will  go  all  to  pieces!" 

"That's  what  they  said  when  men  asked  for  the  vote 
and  for  education,  when  women  asked  for  education  and 
the  vote;  that's  what  they  said  when  people  opposed  the 
divine  right  of  kings,  and  when  they  asked  for  religious 
freedom;  that's  what  they  said  when  people  opposed 
slavery;  that's  what  they  said  when  people  said  that 
insane  people  were  not  inhabited  by  devils  and  should  be 
treated  as  invalids.  The  trouble,  Charity,  is  that  a 
certain  spirit  has  always  been  abroad  in  the  world  fight- 
ing imaginary  devils  with  the  best  intentions  in  the  world. 
And  in  all  history  there  has  never  been  anybody  so 
dangerous  to  human  welfare  as  the  zealot  who  wants  to 
protect  other  people  from  themselves  and  from  the  devils. 

"The  insane  people  were  never  inhabited  by  devils, 
and  neither  are  the  sane  people.  Most  men  want  one 
wife  and  most  women  want  one  husband.  Even  in  the 
polygamous  countries  you'll  not  find  any  more  real 
polygamy  than  you  find  in  the  countries  with  the  strictest 
marriage  laws.  Bluebeard  was  a  Mohammedan,  but  Don 
Juan  was  a  Christian.  Spain  has  no  divorce  on  any 
grounds;  neither  has  Italy.  Would  you  point  to  those 

416 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

countries  as  models  of  domestic  purity?  Does  any  sane 
person  dare  say  that  home  life  in  Spain  is  purer  than  in 
the  United  States? 

"I  tell  you,  easy  divorce  goes  right  along  with  mer- 
ciful laws,  public  schools,  clean  prisons,  free  press,  free 
speech." 

Mrs.  Cheever  was  a  very  good  woman,  and  she  abomi- 
nated divorces.  She  had  very  peculiar  reasons  for  wanting 
one  herself,  as  every  one  has  who  wants  one,  but  she 
felt  her  case  to  be  so  exceptional  that  it  proved  the  rule 
against  divorces.  She  shrank  a  little  from  the  iconoclastic 
lawyer  she  had  come  to  for  aid,  and  reminded  him  of  the 
solemnity  of  the  theme. 

"  Don't  you  believe  in  the  sanctity  of  matrimony?" 

"Just  as  much  as  I  believe  in  the  sanctity  of  personal 
liberty  and  a  contract  and  a  debt  and  the  obligation  to 
vote  and  bear  arms  and  equality  of  opportunity  and 
responsibility  and — oh,  a  lot  of  other  sacred  things — just 
as  much  and  no  more." 

"But  the  Church  calls  marriage  a  sacrament." 

"  It  does  now,  yes;  but  it  didn't  for  over  fifteen  hundred 
years." 

"What!" 

"It's  true.  The  trouble  with  you  religious  people  is 
that  you  never  know  the  history  of  your  own  religion. 
And  remember  one  more  thing :  the  marriage  rules  of  the 
Christian  Church  are  all  founded  on  the  theories  of  men 
who  never  married.  No  wonder  they  found  it  easy  to  lay 
down  hard  and  fast  rules.  Remember  another  thing :  the 
early  Church  fathers,  Saint  Paul,  Hieronymus,  and 
thousands  of  others,  believed  that  marriage  was  only  a 
little  bit  better  than  the  worst  evil,  and  that  womankind 
was  hardly  more  than  the  devil's  natural  weapon. 

"It  was  not  until  the  Church  was  eleven  hundred  and 

sixty-four  years  old  that  Peter  Lombard  put  marriage 

among  the  seven  sacraments.     And  marriage  did  not 

become  an  official  matter  of  Church  jurisdiction  till  the 

27  417 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Council  of  Trent  in  fifteen  hundred  and  sixty-three. 
Think  of  that !  Marriage  was  not  a  sacrament  for  fifteen 
centuries,  and  it  has  been  one  for  less  than  four.  And 
at  that  the  Church  could  only  manage  the  problem  by 
increasing  the  number  of  impediments  to  marriage,  which 
meant  that  it  increased  the  number  of  excuses  for  annul- 
ling it. 

"The  total  number  of  marriages  annulled  would  amaze 
you.  History  is  full  of  the  most  picturesque  devices  for 
granting  divorce  without  seeming  to.  Sometimes  they 
would  iUegitimize  two  or  three  generations  in  order  to  find 
a  marriage  within  the  forbidden  degrees. 

"According  to  Saint  Matthew,  Christ  allowed  divorce 
on  the  ground  of  adultery;  according  to  Mark  and  Luke 
he  made  no  such  allowance.  New  York  State  follows 
Saint  Matthew.  The  Catholic  Church  follows  Luke  and 
John.  Old  Martin  Luther  said  that  marriage  was  none 
of  the  Church's  business.  And  that's  what  I  think." 

"You  don't  believe  in  the  religious  ceremony?" 

"  I'm  afraid  I  don't  believe  in  religious  ceremonies  about 
anything.  I'm  rather  a  heathen,  you  know — brought  up 
in  a  good  Presbyterian  Calvinistic  atmosphere,  but  I've 
lost  it  all.  I'll  give  three  cheers  for  virtue  and  the  home 
as  well  as  anybody ;  but  my  study  and  my  experience  lead 
me  to  distrust  preachers  and  preaching. 

"Still,  this  is  a  free  country,  and  married  people  have 
a  right  to  go  to  church  if  they  want  to,  or  to  stay  away. 
But  I  believe  that  marriage  must  be  a  civil  contract  and 
that  no  preacher  has  a  right  to  denounce  the  State's 
prerogative,  or  try  to  belittle  it.  It  is  strange,  but  true,, 
that  when  the  Church  has  ruled  the  State  the  world  has 
always  groaned  in  corruption  and  cruelty. 

"I  believe  that  the  law  of  New  York  is  ridiculous  in  al- 
lowing only  one  ground  for  divorce,  and  if  the  United 
States  ever  arranges  a  uniform  divorce  law  it  will  un- 
doubtedly follow  the  policy  of  the  more  liberal  States. 
I  believe,  with  Bernard  Shaw  and  John  Galsworthy  and 

418 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

a  number  of  other  good,  great  men,  in  cheap  and  easy 
divorce,  divorce  within  reach  of  the  poor. 

"As  for  morality,  you  have  only  to  read  the  literature 
of  the  time  when  there  was  no  divorce  to  realize  how 
little  a  safeguard  it  is  for  the  home.  Boccaccio  gives  a 
social  portrait  of  such  a  life,  and  he  is  almost  too  indecent 
to  read.  Yet  the  picture  he  gives  is  not  half  so  terrible 
as  Saint  Catherine  of  Siena  gives.  They  had  to  cut  that 
chapter  out  of  her  works." 

"Oh,  do  you  read  her  works,  too?"  said  Charity,  re- 
membering her  experience  with  that  flaming  biography. 

"I  read  a  little  of  everybody.  But  everything  I  read 
and  see  confirms  my  opinion  that  too  much  law  is  the 
curse  of  the  world.  Still,  as  I  say,  I'm  not  a  lawmaker. 
I'm  a  law-manipulator.  I've  been  wondering  how  long 
you  would  stand  Cheever's  scandalous  behavior,  and  how 
long  you  could  be  convinced  that  you  were  helping  the 
morals  of  the  world  by  condoning  and  encouraging  such 
immorality.  Now  that  you've  brought  your  troubles  to 
my  shop  I'm  going  to  help  you  if  I  can.  But  I  don't  want 
to  get  you  or  myself  into  the  clutches  of  the  law.  You'll 
have  to  take  care  of  your  Church  relations  as  best  you 
can.  They  may  turn  you  out,  and  you  may  roast  on  a 
gridiron  hereafter,  but  that's  your  business.  Personally,  I 
think  the  only  wicked  thing  I've  ever  heard  of  you  doing 
was  permitting  your  husband  to  board  and  lodge  at  your 
house  while  he  carried  on  with  that — woman.  A  harem 
divided  against  itself  will  not  stand." 

Charity  was  terrified  by  the  man's  profane  view  of 
sacred  things,  and  she  was  horrified  to  learn  that  she  could 
only  release  herself  and  Cheever  from  the  shackles  by  a 
kind  of  trickery.  She  would  have  to  make  her  escape 
somewhat  as  she  had  seen  Houdini  break  from  his  ropes 
in  the  vaudevilles,  by  retiring  behind  dark  curtains  for  a 
while. 

She  felt  guilty  and  craven  whichever  way  she  turned, 
and  she  imagined  the  revulsion  with  which  the  good  pastor 

419 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

would  regard  her.  Yet  she  was  in  a  kind  of  mania  to 
accept  the  scapegoat's  burdens  and  be  off  into  the  wilder- 
ness. She  was  resolved  to  undergo  everything  for  the 
sake  of  that  poor  child  of  Zada's  hastening  toward  the 
world.  She  thanked  Heaven  she  had  no  child  of  her  own 
to  complicate  her  duty. 

She  understood  why  Cheever  wanted  to  protect  the 
name  of  the  child's  mother  from  the  courts,  and  she  was 
baffled  by  the  situation.  The  lawyer,  who  was  so  flippant 
about  the  things  the  Church  held  so  sacred,  was  like  a 
priest  in  his  abhorrence  of  any  tampering  with  the  letter 
of  the  law. 

She  left  his  office  for  a  conference  with  Cheever.  She 
found  at  home  that  he  had  been  telephoning  to  her.  She 
called  him  up,  and  he  came  over  at  once. 

"I'm  in  a  devil  of  a  mess,  Charity,"  he  said.  "My 
lawyer  refuses  to  help  me  give  you  evidence,  and  Zada 
— Miss  L'Etoile — has  developed  a  peculiar  streak  of 
obstinacy.  She  is  determined  that  no  other  woman  shall 
be  named  as  the — er — co-respondent.  She  would  rather 
be  named  herself.  She  says  everybody  knows  about  our 
— er — relations,  anyway;  and  she  doesn't  care  if  they 
do." 

Zada's  character  and  her  career  had  rendered  her  as 
contemptuous  of  public  disapproval  as  any  zealot  of  a 
loftier  cause  than  love.  There  was  a  kind  of  barbaric 
insolence  in  her  passion  that  Charity  could  not  help  ad- 
miring a  little.  She  felt  a  whit  ashamed  of  her  own 
timidities  and  delicacies.  The  trouble  with  these  proud 
defiers  of  the  public,  however,  is  that  they  do  not  ask  the 
consent  of  the  babies  that  are  more  or  less  implied  in  their 
superb  amours. 

Cheever  was  so  distracted  between  the  scruples  of  his 
lawyer  and  Zada's  lack  of  them  that  when  Charity  con- 
fessed how  she  had  set  detectives  on  him  and  had  secured 
a  dictagraphic  record  of  his  alliance  with  Zada  he  was 
overcome  with  gratitude. 

420 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

So  little  a  shift  of  circumstances  makes  all  the  dif- 
ference between  a  spy  and  a  savior.  The  deed  that  he 
would  once  have  cursed  his  wife  for  stooping  to,  perhaps 
have  beaten  her  for,  was  now  an  occasion  for  overwhelm- 
ing her  with  thanks. 

He  hurried  away  to  his  lawyer,  and  Charity  telephoned 
McNiven  for  another  appointment  the  next  afternoon. 
Jim  Dyckman's  appointment  was  for  the  next  morning. 


CHAPTER  IV 

WHEN  Jim  reached  his  office  the  next  morning 
McNiven  recommended  the  view  to  him,  gave 
him  a  chair,  refused  a  cigar,  lighted  his  pipe  instead, 
opened  a  drawer  in  his  desk,  put  his  feet  in  it,  and  leaned 
far  back  in  his  swivel  chair. 

Jim  began,  "Well,  you  see,  Sandy,  it's  like  this — 

"One  moment,"  McNiven  broke  in.  "Before  you 
speak  I  must  as  an  honest  lawyer  warn  you  against  the 
step  you  contemplate." 

"  But,  damn  it,  you  don't  know  what  it  is  yet." 

"  I  don't  have  to.  I  know  you,  and  I  know  that  people 
don't  come  to  lawyers,  as  a  rule,  except  to  get  out  of  a 
scrape  dishonestly  or  to  get  into  one  unwisely." 

It  was  his  office  joke,  and  something  more,  a  kind  of 
formula  for  squaring  himself  with  his  conscience,  a 
phrase  for  warding  off  the  devil — as  a  beggar  spits  on  the 
penny  he  accepts. 

Having  exorcised  the  demon,  he  said,  "Go  on,  tell 
me:  what's  her  name  and  how  much  does  she  want  for 
silence?" 

"How  much  do  you  want  for  silence?"  Jim  growled. 

"Shoot!" 

McNiven  was  startled  and  grieved  when  he  learned 
that  Jim  was  not  making  ready  to  marry  Charity  Coe, 
but  some  one  else.  Jim  told  him  as  much  as  he  thought 
necessary,  and  McNiven  guessed  the  rest.  He  groaned: 
"It  seems  impossible  to  surround  marriage  with  such 
difficulties  that  people  won't  break  in  and  out.  I've  got 

433 


a  friend  of  yours  trying  to  bust  a  home  as  quietly  as 
you're  trying  to  build  one." 

Of  course,  he  did  not  mention  Charity's  name.  He  tried 
fervently  to  convince  Jim  that  he  ought  not  to  marry 
Kedzie,  but,  failing  to  persuade  him  from  the  perils  of 
matrimony,  he  did  his  best  to  help  him  to  a  decent 
secrecy.  His  best  was  the  program  Jim  and  Kedzie 
followed. 

They  motored  over  to  the  village  of  Jolicoeur  in  New 
Jersey.  There  a  local  attorney,  a  friend  of  McNiven's, 
met  them  and  vouched  for  them  before  the  town  clerk, 
who  made  out  the  license.  He  asked  Kedzie  if  she  had 
been  married  before,  and  she  was  so  young  and  pretty  and 
so  plainly  a  girl  that  he  laughed  when  he  asked  the  ques- 
tion. And  for  answer  Kedzie  just  laughed,  too.  He  wrote 
down  that  she  had  never  been  married  before.  Kedzie 
had  not  really  lied,  and  they  can't  arrest  a  person,  surely, 
for  ju£t  laughing.  Not  that  she  did  not  believe  in  the 
motto  which  Blanche  Bates  used  to  read  so  convincingly 
in  "The  Darling  of  the  Gods" :  " It  is  better  to  lie  a  little 
than  to  be  unhappy  much." 

Jim  was  shocked  at  the  situation,  but  he  could  hardly 
be  so  ungallant  as  to  call  his  fiancee  a  liar  at  such  a  time. 
Besides,  he  had  heard  that  the  law  is  interested  in  people's 
persons  and  not  their  names,  and  he  was  marrying  Kedzie 
personally. 

When  the  license  was  made  out  the  lawyer  whispered 
to  the  town  clerk  that  it  would  be  made  worth  his  while 
to  suppress  the  news  for  thirty  days  or  more,  and  the  clerk 
winked  and  grinned.  Business  was  slow  in  matrimony, 
and  he  needed  any  little  tips. 

Now  that  they  were  licensed,  Jim  and  Kedzie,  being 
non-residents  of  New  Jersey,  must  wait  twenty-four  hours 
before  they  could  be  married.  They  motored  back  to 
New  York  and  went  to  the  theater  to  kill  the  evening. 
The  next  afternoon  Jim  called  for  Kedzie,  and  they  mo- 
tored again  to  Jolicoeur  for  the  ceremony.  Mr.  and 

423 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Mrs.  Thropp  went  along  as  witnesses  and  to  make 
sure. 

The  lawyer  had  found  a  starveling  parson  in  Jolicoeur 
who  asked  the  fatal  questions  and  pronounced  the  twain 
man  and  wife,  adding  the  warning,  "Whom  God  hath 
joined,  let  no  man  put  asunder."  Jim  Dyckman  was  so 
befuddled  that  he  heard  it,  "Let  no  man  join  whom  God 
hath  put  asunder."  But  he  paid  the  preacher  well  and 
added  a  large  sum  for  the  church  on  condition  that  the 
news  of  the  marriage  be  kept  out  of  the  public  records 
till  the  last  legal  moment. 

Dyckman  had  tried  to  do  the  honorable  thing  by  Ked- 
zie.  He  was  certainly  generous,  for  a  man  can  hardly  give 
a  woman  more  than  himself  and  all  he  has.  Dyckman, 
however,  had  been  ashamed  of  a  mental  reservation  or 
two.  He  could  not  repress  a  sneaking  feeling  that  he 
had  been  less  the  kidnapper  than  the  napped  kid  in  this 
elopement.  If  anybody  were  to  be  arrested  for  abduc- 
tion, it  would  not  be  he. 

He  reviled  himself  for  confessing  this  to  himself,  and 
his  sympathies  went  out  to  Kedzie  because  the  poor  child 
had  to  be  yoked  with  a  reluctant  mate.  A  bridegroom 
ought  to  bring  to  his  bride,  above  all  things  else,  an 
eager  heart.  And  that  Jim  could  not  bring. 

He  had  been  in  his  time  a  man  and  had  sowed  his  meas- 
ure of  wild  oats — more  than  a  poor  man  could,  less  than 
a  rich  man  might,  far  less  than  his  unusual  opportunities 
and  the  greedy  throngs  of  temptresses  encouraged.  But 
he  had  taken  Kedzie  seriously,  never  dreaming  how  large 
a  part  ambition  played  in  her  devotion  to  him.  He  had 
been  good  to  her  and  with  her.  The  marriage  ceremony 
had  solemnized  him  further. 

He  had  made  a  try  at  secrecy,  because  he  felt  shy 
about  the  affair.  He  knew  that  his  name  would  lead  the 
newspapers  to  haze  him,  as  the  rustic  neighbors  deride 
a  rural  couple  with  a  noisy  "chivaree."  He  dreaded  the 
head-lines,  as  a  kind  of  invasion  of  the  bridal  chamber. 

424 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

In  any  case  he  had  always  hated  flamboyant  weddings 
with  crowds  and  splendor.  He  did  not  believe  that  a 
marriage  should  be  circused. 

And  thus  at  last  he  and  Kedzie  were  united  into  one 
soul  and  one  flesh,  for  better,  for  worse,  etc.,  etc.  Then 
they  sped  away  to  the  remotest  pleasant  hotel  to  be  found 
in  darkest  Jersey. 

Jim  registered  under  his  own  name,  but  blushed  more 
hotly  than  if  he  had  been  engaged  in  an  escapade.  He 
could,  perhaps,  have  taken  Kedzie  so  with  less  regret 
than  under  the  blessing  of  the  clergy.  For  now  he  felt 
that  he  owed  to  her  the  all-hallowing  grace  of  that  utter 
love  which  was  something  he  could  not  bestow. 

She  was  the  first  wife  he  had  ever  had,  and  he  wished 
a  devoutness  in  that  consummation.  Lacking  the  sanctify- 
ing ardor,  he  was  remorseful  rather  than  triumphant,  feel- 
ing himself  more  of  a  brute  than  even  a  bridegroom 
usually  feels. 

Kedzie  did  not  seem  to  miss  any  perfection  in  his  de- 
votion, but  he  imputed  that  more  to  her  innocent  kindli- 
ness than  to  any  grace  of  his  own.  The  more  he  studied 
her  the  more  he  wondered  why  he  did  not  love  her  more. 
She  was  tremendously  exquisite,  ferociously  delicate,  and 
almighty  pretty.  She  was  altogether  too  delectable,  too 
cunningly  wrought  and  fragile,  for  a  hulking  Titan  like 
him. 

He  was  positively  afraid  of  her,  and  greatly  amazed  to 
see  that  she  was  not  at  all  afraid  of  him.  The  moment  the 
parson  had  done  his  worst  a  new  Kedzie  had  appeared. 
She  took  command  of  everything  instantly:  ordered  the 
parson  about,  shipped  her  mother  and  father  back  to  town 
as  if  they  were  bothersome  children,  gave  directions  to 
Jim's  chauffeur  in  a  way  that  taught  him  who  was  to  be 
who  thenceforward,  and  made  demands  upon  the  hotel 
clerk  in  a  tone  that  was  more  convincing  of  her  wifehood 
than  a  marriage  license  could  have  been. 

The  quality  missing  in  Kedzie  was  the  sense  of  terror 

425 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

and  meekness  expectable  in  brides.  Her  sole  distress  was, 
to  Jim's  amazement,  the  obscurity  and  solitude  of  their 
retreat.  Kedzie  was  rapturous,  but  she  had  not  the 
slightest  desire  to  hide  it  from  the  world.  She  was  Mrs. 
Jim  Dyckman,  and  she  didn't  care  who  knew  it. 

Poor  Kedzie  had  her  own  sorrows  to  mar  her  triumph. 
She  was  being  driven  to  believe  that. the  world  was  aa 
badly  managed  as  the  Hyperfilm  Studio.  Providence 
seemed  to  provide  tribulations  for  her  like  a  scenario  editor 
pursuing  a  movie  heroine.  The  second  reel  had  begun 
well,  the  rich  but  honest  lover  putting  the  poor  but  dis- 
honest husband  to  flight.  And  now  Honeymoon  Number 
Two!  She  had  dreamed  of  a  gorgeous  church  ceremony 
with  two  pipe-organs,  and  an  enlarged  cast  of  clergymen, 
and  wedding  guests  composed  of  real  millionaires  instead 
of  movie  "extras."  But  lo  and  behold,  her  adorer  whisks 
her  off  to  a  little  town  in  New  Jersey  and  the  great  treaty 
is  sealed  in  the  shoddy  parlor  of  a  village  parsonage! 
Gilfoyle's  Municipal  Building  was  a  cathedral  compared 
to  this. 

Then  with  never  a  white  ribbon  fluttering,  not  an  old 
shoe  or  a  grain  of  rice  hurtling,  the  limousine  of  love  rolled 
away  to  a  neglected  roadhouse.  It  was  attractive  enough 
as  a  roadhouse,  but  it  was  wretched  as  an  imitation 
paradise. 

In  the  face  of  this  outrage  everything  else  was  a  detail,  a 
minor  humiliation.  There  was  no  parrot  on  an  area  fire- 
escape  to  mock  her  next  morning,  but  there  was  a  still 
earlier  rooster  to  banish  sleep  and  parody  her  triumph. 
She  slipped  out  of  bed  and  went  barefoot  to  the  window- 
seat  and  gazed  out  into  a  garden. 

She  made  a  picture  there  that  Ferriday  would  have 
loved  in  a  "close-up."  Her  hair  was  tumbling  down  upon 
and  around  her  shoulders,  and  her  silken  nightgown 
shimmered  blissfully  about  her,  sketching  her  contours 
in  iridescent  lines.  She  gazed,  through  an  Elizabethan 
window  of  small  panes,  into  a  garden  where  sunrise 

426 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE   EVERYTHING 

bloomed  rosily  in  petals  of  light.  She  was  the  prettiest 
thing  in  the  pretty  picture;  yet  she  was  pouting  at  Fate — 
Fate,  the  old  scenario  writer  who  never  could  seem  to  bring 
off  a  happy  ending. 

Jim  Dyckman,  waking,  saw  her  there  and  rubbed  his 
eyes.  Then  he  remembered.  He  pondered  her  and  saw 
a  tear  or  two  slip  out  of  her  eyes,  run  along  her  cheek 
and  pitch  off  into  the  tiny  ravine  of  her  bosom.  He  felt 
that  he  was  a  contemptible  fiend  who  had  committed  a 
lynchable  crime  upon  a  tender  and  helpless  victim.  He 
closed  his  eyes  in  remorse,  pretending  to  sleep,  tormented 
like  the  repentant  purchaser  of  a  "white  slave " — or  rather 
a  pink  slave. 

They  breakrasted  early  and  prettily.  Kedzie  was  ra- 
diant now.  She  usually  was  when  she  was  dealing  in 
futures.  They  took  up  the  question  of  their  future 
residence.  Jim  proposed  all  the  honeymoon  haunts. 
Europe  was  out  of  the  question,  so  he  suggested  Bermuda, 
Jamaica,  California,  Atlantic  City,  North  Carolina,  the 
Adirondacks.  But  Kedzie  wanted  to  get  back  to  New 
York. 

This  pained  and  bewildered  him  at  first,  because  he  felt 
that  wedded  rapture  should  hide  itself  awhile  in  its  own 
lovely  loneliness.  Besides,  his  appearance  in  New  York 
with  a  wife  would  involve  him  in  endless  explanations — 
and  there  would  be  reporters  to  see,  and  society  editors  and 
photographers,  and  his  family  and  all  his  friends. 

But  those  were  just  what  Kedzie  wanted.  And  at  last 
she  told  him  so. 

"You  act  as  if  you  were  ashamed  to  be  seen  with  me," 
she  cried  out. 

The  only  answering  argument  to  this  was  to  take  her 
back  to  town  at  once.  The  question  of  how  and  where 
they  were  to  live  was  important.  They  had  not  settled 
it  in  the  flurry  of  their  hasty  secret  marriage. 

Jim  supposed  that  a  hotel  would  be  necessary  till  they 
found  a  house.  He  loathed  the  thought  of  a  hotel,  but 

427 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

a  suitable  furnished  house  might  not  be  in  the  market  at 
the  moment.  He  suggested  an  apartment. 

This  reminded  Kedzie  of  how  Gilfoyle  had  sent  her 
out  on  a  flat-hunt.  She  would  have  more  money  now, 
but  there  would  doubtless  be  something  the  matter  with 
every  place.  The  most  urgent  thing  was  to  get  out  of 
New  Jersey.  They  could  discuss  residences  in  the  car. 

And  they  did  discuss  them.  Building  a  new  house 
would  take  years.  Buying  a  ready-made  house  and 
furnishing  it  would  take  days,  perhaps  weeks.  Kedzie 
could  not  choose  which  one  of  the  big  hotels  she  most 
wanted  to  camp  in.  Each  had  its  qualities  and  their 
defects. 

When  they  were  on  the  ferry  crossing  the  river  she  had 
not  yet  made  up  her  mind.  Jim  had  no  mind  to  make 
up.  He  was  reduced  to  a  mere  waiter  on  her  orders. 
He  laughed  at  himself.  This  morning  at  daybreak  he  had 
been  reproaching  himself  for  being  a  vicious  gorilla  who 
had  carried  off  a  little  girl;  now  he  was  realizing  that  the 
little  girl  had  carried  him  off  and  was  making  a  monkey 
of  him. 

Kedzie' s  mental  disarray  was  the  overwhelming  in- 
fluence of  infinite  money.  For  the  first  time  in  her  life 
she  could  disregard  price-marks  entirely.  Curiously,  that 
took  away  half  the  fun  of  the  thing.  It  seemed  practically 
impossible  for  her  to  be  extravagant.  She  would  learn 
before  long  that  there  are  countless  things  that  plutocrats 
cannot  afford,  that  they  also  must  deny  themselves  much, 
feel  shabby,  and  envy  their  neighbors.  For  the  present 
she  realized  only  that  she  had  oodles  of  money  to  sprinkle. 

But  it  takes  training  to  spend  money,  and  Kedzie  was 
now  unpractised.  Her  wisher  was  so  undeveloped  that 
she  could  only  wish  for  things  available  to  people  of 
moderate  affluence.  She  could  not  wish  for  a  yacht, 
because  Jim  had  a  yacht.  She  could  not  wish  for  a  bal- 
loon because  she  would  not  go  up  in  it.  She  could  wish 
for  a  house,  but  she  could  not  walk  into  it  without  delay. 

428 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

She  could  not  live  in  two  hotels  at  once.  Jewelry  she 
could  use  in  quantities,  but  even  at  that  she  had  only 
so  much  surface  area  to  hang  it  on.  In  fact,  when  she 
came  right  face  to  face  with  facts,  what  was  there  worth 
wishing  for?  What  was  the  use  of  being  so  dog-on  rich, 
anyway? 

And  there  she  hung  on  the  door-sill  of  her  new  life  like, 
a  child  catching  sight  of  a  loaded  Christmas  tree  and 
palsied  with  inability  to  decide  which  toy  to  grab  first, 
horrified  to  realize  that  he  cannot  suck  the  orange  and 
blow  the  trumpet  at  the  same  time. 

When  they  reached  the  New  York  side  of  the  Hudson 
the  car  rolled  off  the  boat  into  the  ferry-house  and  into 
the  street,  and  when  Jim  said  again,  "Well,  where  do  you 
want  to  go?"  she  had  to  sigh. 

"Oh,  Heavens!  let's  go  home  to  my  old  apartment  and 
talk  it  over."  She  gave  the  address  to  the  chauffeur,  and 
Jim  smiled  grimly.  It  gave  him  a  little  cynical  amuse- 
ment to  act  as  passenger. 

On  the  way  up-town  Kedzie  realized  that  she  was  hungry 
and  that  there  would  be  no  food  in  her  apartment.  They 
turned  to  Sherry's.  Kedzie  left  Jim  and  went  into  the 
dressing-room  to  smooth  her  hair  after  the  motor  flight. 

And  now,  just  too  late,  Charity  Coe  Cheever  happened 
to  arrive  as  the  guest  of  Mrs.  Duane.  The  sight  of  Jim, 
alone  brought  a  flush  of  hope  to  Charity's  eyes.  She 
greeted  him  with  a  breeziness  she  had  hardly  known  since 
she  was  a  girl.  There  was  nothing  about  his  appearance 
to  indicate  that  he  had  just  come  across  from  New  Jersey, 
where  he  had  been  made  the  husband  of  Mrs.  Kedzie 
Thropp  Gilfoyle. 

Seeing  Charity  so  unusually  bright,  Jim  said,  "What's 
happened  to  you,  Charity,  that  you  look  so  gay  and  free?" 

"That's  what  I  am." 

"What?" 

"Gay  and  free.     Can  you  keep  a  secret?" 

"Yes." 

429 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"I'm  getting  divorced." 

"My  Lord,  no!" 

"Yes,  my  lord." 

"Oh,  God,  and  me  just  married!" 

Charity  looked  for  an  instant  as  if  an  arrow  had  flashed 
into  her  heart  and  struck  her  dead.  Then  with  relentless 
courage  she  plucked  out  the  steel  and  let  the  blood  gush 
while  she  smiled. 

"  Congratulations,  old  boy.     Who's  the  lucky  lady?" 

"It's  the  little  girl  I  yanked  out  of  Mrs.  Noxon's  pool." 

"The  one  I  asked  you  to  look  out  for?" 

"Yes." 

"Well,  isn't  that  fine!  She  was  very  pretty.  I  hope 
you'll  be  ever  so  happy." 

"Thanks,  Charity — thank  you.  Mighty  nice  of  you! 
Of  course,  you  know — er —  Well,  here  she  is."  He  beck- 
oned to  Kedzie,  who  came  forward.  "Mrs.  Cheever,  my 
wife.  But  you've  met,  haven't  you?" 

"Oh  yes,  indeed,"  said  Charity  Coe,  with  an  effusion 
of  cordiality  that  roused  Kedzie' s  suspicions  more  than  her 
gratitude.  The  first  woman  she  met  was  already  trying 
to  get  into  her  good  graces!  Charity  Coe  went  on,  with 
a  little  difficulty: 

"But  Mrs.  Dyckman  doesn't  remember  me.  I  met 
you  at  Mrs.  Noxon's." 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Kedzie,  and  a  slow,  heavy  crimson 
darkened  her  face  like  a  stream  of  treacle. 

The  first  woman  she  met  was  reminding  her  of  the  time 
she  was  a  poor  young  dancer  with  neither  clothes  nor 
money.  It  was  outrageoms  to  have  this  flung  in  her  face 
at  the  very  gate  of  Eden. 

She  was  extremely  cold  to  Charity  Coe,  and  Charity 
saw  it.  Jim  Dyckman  died  the  death  at  finding  Kedzie 
so  cruel  to  the  one  who  had  befriended  her.  But  he  could 
not  rebuke  his  wife,  even  before  his  lost  love.  So  he  said 
nothing. 

Charity  caught  the  heartsick,  hangdog  look  in  his  eyes, 

430 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

and  she  forbore  to  slice  Kedzie  up  with  sarcasm.  She 
bade  her  a  most  gracious  farewell  and  moved  on. 

Kedzie  stared  after  her  and  her  beautiful  gown,  and 
said:  "Say,  Jim,  who  were  the  Goes,  anyway?  Did  they 
make  their  money  in  trade?" 

Jim  said  that  he  would  be  divinely  condemned,  or  words 
to  that  effect. 


CHAPTER  V 

AID    now   Kedzie    Thropp  was  satisfied  at  last  —  at 
least  for  the  time  being.     She  was  a  plump  kitten, 
replete  and  purr-full,  and  the  world  was  her  catnip-ball. 

There  was  no  visible  horizon  to  her  wealth.  Her  name 
was  one  of  the  oldest,  richest,  noblest  in  the  republic. 
She  was  a  Dyckman  now,  double-riveted  to  the  name 
with  a  civil  license  and  a  religious  certificate.  Tommie 
Gilfoyle  had  politely  died,  and  like  an  obliging  rat  had 
died  outside  the  premises.  Hardly  anybody  knew  that 
she  had  married  him,  and  nobody  who  knew  was  going  to 
tell. 

Kedzie  forgot  Charity  in  the  joy  of  ordering  a  million- 
aire's luncheon.  This  was  not  easy.  She  was  never  a 
glutton  for  food;  excitement  dimmed  what  appetite  she 
had,  and  her  husband,  as  she  knew,  hated  made  dishes 
with  complex  sauces. 

Kedzie  was  baffled  by  the  futility  of  commanding  a  lot 
of  things  she  could  not  eat,  just  for  the  fun  of  making  a 
large  bill.  She  was  like  the  traditional  prospector  who 
struck  it  rich  and,  hastening  to  civilization,  could  think 
of  nothing  to  order  but  "forty  dollars'  worth  of  pork  and 
beans." 

Kedzie  had  to  satisfy  her  plutocratic  pride  by  bossing 
the  waiter  about,  by  complaining  that  the  oysters  were  not 
chilled  and  the  sherry  was.  She  sent  back  the  salad 
for  redressing  and  insisted  that  the  meat  was  from  cold 
storage.  She  was  no  longer  the  poor  girl  afraid  of  the 
waiter. 

432 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Kedzie  was  having  a  good  time,  but  she  regretted  that 
her  wedding-ring  was  so  small.  She  felt  that  wives  ought 
to  wear  some  special  kind  of  plume,  the  price  of  the  feather 
varying  with  the  bank  account.  Kedzie  would  have  had 
to  carry  an  umbrella  of  plumes. 

Still,  she  did  pretty  well  on  her  exit.  She  went  out 
like  a  million  dollars.  But  her  haughtiness  fell  from  her 
when  she  reached  home  and  found  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thropp 
comfortably  installed  there,  saving  hotel  bills. 

Charity  Coe  had  gone  out  feeling  a  million  years  old. 
She  left  the  presence  of  Kedzie  in  a  mood  of  tragic  laugh- 
ter. She  was  in  one  of  those  contemptible,  ridiculous 
plights  in  which  good  people  frequently  find  themselves 
as  a  result  of  kindliness  and  self-sacrifice. 

For  well-meant  actions  are  as  often  and  as  heavily 
punished  in  this  world  as  ill-meant — if  indeed  the  word 
punishment  has  any  respectability  left.  It  is  certainly 
obsolescent. 

Many  great  good  men,  such  as  Brand  Whitlock,  the 
saint  of  Belgium,  had  been  saying  that  the  whole  idea  of 
human  punishment  of  human  beings  is  false,  cruel,  and 
futile,  that  it  has  never  accomplished  anything  worth 
while  for  either  victim  or  inflictor.  They  place  it  among 
the  ugly  follies,  the  bloody  superstitions  that  mankind 
has  clung  to  with  a  fanaticism  impervious  to  experience. 
They  would  change  the  prisons  from  hells  to  schools  and 
hospitals. 

Even  the  doctrine  of  a  hell  beyond  the  grave  is  rather 
neglected  now,  except  by  such  sulphuric  press  agents  as 
Mr.  Sunday.  But  in  this  world  we  cannot  sanely  allege 
that  vice  is  punished  and  virtue  rewarded  until  we  know 
better  what  virtue  is  and  what  is  vice.  All  that  it  is  safe 
to  say  is  that  punishment  is  a  something  unpleasant  and 
reward  a  something  pleasant  that  follows  a  deed — merely 
follows  in  point  of  time,  not  in  proof  of  judgment. 

So  the  mockery  of  Charity's  good  works  was  neither  a 
punishment  nor  a  ridicule.  It  was  a  coincidence,  but  a 

433 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

sad  one.  Charity  had  befriended  Kedzie  without  making 
a  friend  thereby;  she  had  lost,  indeed,  her  good  friend 
Jim.  Charity's  affection  for  Jim  would  make  her  suspect 
in  Kedzie's  eyes,  and  Kedzie's  gratitude  had  evidently 
already  cut  its  sharper-than-a-serpent's  wisdom  tooth. 

Charity  had  been  patient  with  her  husband  and  had  lost 
him.  She  had  asked  the  Church  for  her  freedom  and  had 
been  threatened  with  exile.  Then  her  husband  had  de- 
manded his  freedom  and  forced  her  to  choose  between 
blackening  her  own  soul  with  the  brand  "divorcee"  or 
blackening  her  husband's  mistress's  baby's  soul  with  the 
brand  ' '  illegitimate. ' ' 

She  had  preferred  to  take  the  shame  upon  herself. 
But  who  would  give  her  credit?  She  knew  now  false  was 
the  phrase  that  old  Ovid  uttered  but  could  not  comfort 
even  himself  with,  "The  mind  conscious  of  rectitude 
laughs  at  the  lies  of  gossip."  No  woman  can  afford  such 
security. 

Charity  had  such  a  self -guying  meekness,  indeed,  that 
instead  of  clothing  herself  in  the  robes  of  martyrdom 
she  ridiculed  herself  becatise  of  one  thing:  In  a  pigeon- 
hole of  her  brain  a  little  back-thought  had  lurked,  a  dim 
hope  that  if  she  gave  her  husband  the  divorce  he  implored 
she  might  be  free  to  remold  her  shattered  life  nearer  to 
her  heart's  desire — with  Jim  Dyckman.  Her  husband, 
indeed,  had  taunted  her  with  that  intention,  and  now 
she  had  no  sooner  launched  her  good  name  down  the 
slippery  ways  of  divorce  than  she  found  Jim  Dyckman 
married  and  learned  that  her  premature  and  unwomanly 
hopes  for  him  were  ludicrously  thwarted! 

She  went  to  McNiven's  office  with  a  dark  life  ahead 
of  her.  She  had  no  desire  left  except  to  disentangle  her- 
self from  Peter  Cheever's  life  as  quietly  and  swiftly  as 
possible.  She  told  McNiven  this  and  said: 

"How  quickly  can  the  ghastly  job  be  finished?" 

"Theoretically  it  could  be  done  in  a  day,  but  practically 
it  takes  a  little  longer.  For  we  must  avoid  the  look  of 

434 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

collusion  like  the  plague.     So  we'll  allow,  say,  a  week. 
If  we're  lucky  with  our  judges,  it  may  take  less." 

Then  he  outlined  the  steps  to  be  taken.  An  unusual 
chain  of  circumstances  enabled  him  to  carry  them  out 
with  unexpected  neatness  and  despatch,  so  that  the  case 
became  a  very  model  of  how  gracefully  the  rigid  laws  of 
divorce  could  be  manipulated  in  the  Year  of  Our  Lord 
1916  and  of  the  Founding  of  the  Republic  140. 
•  It  may  be  interesting  to  outline  the  procedure  as  a  so- 
cial document  in  chicanery,  or  social  surgery,  as  one  wills 
to  call  it. 

McNiven  first  laid  under  Charity's  eyes  a  summons 
and  complaint  against  Peter  Cheever.  She  glanced  over 
it  and  found  it  true  except  that  Zada  L'Etoile  was  not 
named;  Cheever's  alleged  income  was  vastly  larger  than 
she  imagined,  and  her  claim  for  alimony  was  exorbitant. 

Her  first  question  was:  "Who  is  this  unknown  woman 
going  by  the  name  of  Sarah  Tishler?  I  thought  Miss 
L'Etoile  was  to  be  the  only  woman  mentioned." 

McNiven  explained:  "L'Etoile  is  her  stage  name. 
She  doesn't  know  her  real  name  herself,  for  she  was  taken 
from  the  foundling-asylum  as  a  child  by  a  family  named 
Tishler.  We  have  taken  advantage  of  that  disadvantage. ' ' 

Charity  bowed  to  this,  but  she  protested  the  income 
credited  to  her  husband. 

"Peter  doesn't  earn  half  as  much  as  that." 

"How  do  you  know  what  he  earns?"  said  McNiven. 

"He's  told  me  often  enough." 

"Do  you  believe  all  he  told  you?" 

"  No;  but,  anyway,  I  don't  want  any  of  his  old  alimony. 
I  have  money  enough  of  my  own." 

"That  can  be  arranged  later,  but  if  you  don't  swear  to 
this  as  it  lies  you  can't  have  your  divorce. " 

"Why  not?" 

"Because  there  has  to  be  a  contest,  and  we've  got  to 
give  his  lawyer  something  to  fight." 

Charity  yielded  wearily.     She  fought  against  making 

435 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

an  affidavit  to  the  truth  of  the  complaint,  but  when 
NcNiven  said,  "No  affidavit,  no  divorce,"  she  took  her 
oath  before  the  clerk  who  was  called  in  as  a  notary  public. 

"Now  you  may  go  home,"  said  McNiven;  and  Charity 
stole  out,  feeling  herself  a  perjured  criminal.  Then  the 
divorce-mill  began  to  grind. 

A  process-server  from  McNiven's  office  went  across 
Broadway  to  Tessier's  office,  where  Cheever  was  waiting. 
He  handed  the  papers  to  Cheever,  who  handed  them  to 
Tessier,  who  hastily  dictated  an  answer  denying  the 
adultery,  the  alleged  income,  and  the  propriety  of  the 
alimony  claimed. 

Tessier  and  Cheever  visited  McNiven  in  his  office  and 
served  him  with  this  answer.  The  two  lawyers  then  dic- 
tated an  agreement  to  a  reference,  Tessier  adding  a 
statement  that  he  considered  his  client  equipped  with  a 
good  defense  and  that  he  intended  to  oppose  the  suit  in 
good  faith. 

Their  clerks  took  this  to  the  County  Court  House  in 
City  Hall  Square  and  filed  it  with  the  clerk  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  Special  Term,  Part  II. 

Justice  Cardwell,  before  leaving  his  chambers,  read  the 
papers  and  issued  an  order  naming  as  referee  the  lawyer 
Henry  Firth. 

Here  for  a  moment  the  veil  of  secrecy  was  rent,  for 
this  order  could  not  be  suppressed.  It  was  published  in 
The  Law  Journal  the  next  morning,  and  the  eager  reporters 
reading  therein  that  Mrs.  Peter  Cheever  was  suing  her 
husband  for  a  divorce  on  statutory  grounds,  dashed  to  the 
records  and  learned  that  she  accused  him  of  undue  in- 
timacy with  an  unknown  woman  going  by  the  name  of 
Sarah  Tishler. 

By  selecting  an  obscure  town  this  publicity  might  have 
been  deferred,  but  it  would  have  meant  delay  in  the  case 
as  well. 

A  flock  of  reporters  sped  like  hawks  for  Charity's  home, 
where  they  were  denied  admittance;  for  Cheever's  office, 

436 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

where  they  were  told  that  he  was  out  of  town;  and  even 
for  Zada  L'Etoile's  apartment,  where  they  were  informed 
that  she  had  left  the  State,  as  indeed  she  had.  Sarah 
Tishler  had  a  right,  being  named  as  co-respondent,  to 
enter  the  case  and  defend  her  name,  but  she  waived  the 
privilege. 

The  evening  papers  made  what  they  could  of  the  sensa- 
tion, but  nobody  mentioned  Zada,  for  nobody  knew  that 
fate  had  tried  to  conceal  her  by  naming  her  Tishler, 
and  nobody  quite  dared  to  mention  her  without  legal 
sanction. 

On  the  next  day  Lawyer  Firth  held  court  in  his  office. 
Reporters  were  excluded,  and  the  lawyers  and  detectives 
and  Cheever  and  Charity,  who  had  to  be  present,  declined 
to  answer  any  of  the  questions  rained  upon  them  in  the 
corridors  and  the  elevators. 

Mr.  Firth  was  empowered  to  swear  in  witnesses  and  take 
testimony.  The  evidence  of  the  detectives,  corroborated 
by  the  evidence  of  a  hall-boy  and  a  janitor  and  by  proof 
of  the  installation  of  the  dictagraph,  seemed  conclusive  to 
Mr.  Firth. 

Cheever  denied  that  he  had  committed  the  alleged 
adultery  and  gave  proof  that  his  income  was  not  as  stated. 
Attorney  Tessier  evaded  the  evidence  of  adultery,  but 
fought  hard  against  the  evidence  of  prosperity.  Referee 
Firth  made  his  report  finding  the  defendant  guilty  of  the 
statutory  offense,  and  ordered  a  decree  of  divorce,  with  a 
diminished  alimony.  He  appended  a  transcript  of  the 
evidence  and  filed  it  with  the  Clerk  of  the  County  of  New 
York.  The  statutory  fee  for  a  referee  was  ten  dollars 
a  day,  but  the  lawyers  had  quietly  agreed  on  the  pay- 
ment of  a  thousand  dollars  for  expediting  the  case.  With 
this  recompense  Mr.  Firth  ended  his  duties  in  the  matter. 

McNiven  prepared  a  motion  to  confirm  the  report  of 
the  referee  and  took  it  to  Tessier,  who  accepted  service 
for  his  client.  McNiven  then  went  to  the  county  clerk 
and  filed  a  notice  that  the  motion  would  be  called  up  the 

437 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

r 

next  morning.  The  clerk  put  it  on  the  calendar  of  Special 
Term,  Part  III. 

The  next  morning  McNiven  appeared  before  Justice 
Palfrey,  submitted  his  motion,  and  asked  for  an  inter,- 
locutory  decree.  He  left  his  paper  with  the  clerk.  Dur- 
ing the  afternoon  Justice  Palfrey  looked  over  the  referee's 
report  and  decided  to  grant  McXiven's  motion.  In  view 
of  the  prominence  of  the  contestants  and  since  he  had 
heard  of  Charity's  good  works,  and  felt  sure  that  she  had 
suffered  enough  in  the  wreck  of  her  home,  he  ordered  the 
evidence  sealed.  This  harmed  nobody  but  the  hungry 
reporters  and  the  gossip-appetite  of  the  public. 

McNiven  was  waiting  in  the  office  of  the  clerk,  and  as 
soon  as  he  learned  that  the  judge  had  granted  the  motion 
he  submitted  the  formal  orders  to  be  signed.  The  clerk 
entered  the  interlocutory  decree.  And  now  the  marriage 
was  ended  except  for  three  months  of  grace. 

The  first  day  after  that  period  had  passed  McNiven 
submitted  an  affidavit  that  there  had  been  no  change  in 
the  feelings  of  the  parties  and  there  was  no  good  reason 
why  the  decree  should  not  be  granted.  He  made  up  the 
final  papers,  gave  Tessier  notice,  and  deposited  the  record 
with  the  clerk.  Justice  Cruden,  then  sitting  in  Special 
Term,  Part  III.,  signed  the  judgment.  And  the  deed  was 
done.  Mrs.  Cheever  was  permitted  to  resume  her  maiden 
name,  but  that  meant  too  much  confusion;  she  needed 
the  "Mrs."  for  protection  of  a  sort. 

The  divorce  carried  with  it  a  clause  forbidding  the 
guilty  husband  to  marry  any  one  else  before  five  years 
had  passed.  But  while  the  divorce  was  legal  all  over  the 
world,  this  restriction  ended  at  the  State  bounds. 

So  Peter  Cheever  and  Zada  L'Etoile  went  over  into  the 
convenient  realm  of  New  Jersey  the  next  morning, 
secured  a  license,  and  on  the  following  day  were  there  made 
man  and  wife  before  all  the  world.  This  entitled  them  to 
a  triumphant  return  to  New  York.  And  now  Peter 
Cheever  had  also  done  the  honorable  thing.  This  ' '  honor- 

438 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

able  thing"  business  will  be  one  of  the  first  burdens 
dropped  by  the  men  when  the  women  perfect  their  claim 
to  equality. 

In  about  two  weeks  a  daughter  was  born  to  the  happy 
twain.  Thanks  to  Charity's  obliging  nature,  it  was 
christened  in  church  and  accepted  in  law  as  a  complete 
Cheever.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  and  Miss  Cheever  now  began 
to  live  (more  or  less)  happily  ever  after  (temporarily). 

Altogether  it  was  a' triumph  of  legal,  social,  and  surgical 
technic.  It  outraged  many  virtuous  people.  There  was 
a  good  deal  of  harsh  criticism  of  everybody  concerned. 
The  worthies  who  believe  that  divorce  is  the  cause  of 
the  present  depraved  state  of  the  United  States  bewailed 
one  more  instance  of  the  vile  condition  of  the  lawless 
Gomorrah.  The  eternal  critics  of  the  rich  used  the  case 
as  another  text  in  proof  of  the  complete  control  that  wealth 
has  over  our  courts,  though  seventy-five  divorces  to 
obscure  persons  were  granted  at  the  same  time  without 
difficulty,  with  little  expense  and  no  newspaper  pun- 
ishment. 

Dr.  Mosely  wrote  Charity  a  letter  of  heartbroken  con- 
demnation, and  she  slunk  away  to  the  mountains  to 
escape  from  the  reproach  of  all  good  people  and  to  re- 
cuperate for  another  try  at  the  French  war  hospitals. 
She  had  let  her  great  moving-picture  project  lapse.  She 
felt  hopelessly  out  of  the  world  and  she  was  afraid  to  face 
her  friends.  Still,  she  had  money  and  her  "freedom,"  and 
one  really  cannot  expect  everything. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  ninety  days  following  Charity's  encounter  with 
Jim  Dyckman  and  his  bride  at  Sherry's  had  been 
busy  times  for  her  and  epochal  in  their  changes.  From 
being  one  of  the  loneliest  and  most  approved  women  in 
America  she  had  become  one  of  the  loneliest  and  least 
approved.  Altruism  is  perhaps  the  most  expensive  of  the 
virtues. 

No  less  epochal  were  those  months  for  the  Dyckmans, 
bride  and  groom.  Their  problems  began  to  bourgeon 
immediately  after  they  left  New  Jersey  and  went  to 
Kedzie's  old  apartment  for  further  debate  as  to  their 
future  lodgings. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thropp  were  amazed  by  their  sudden  re- 
turn. Adna  was  a  trifle  sheepish.  They  found  him  sitting 
in  the  parlor  in  his  shirt-sleeves  and  stocking  feet,  and 
staring  out  of  the  window  at  the  neighbors  opposite.  In 
Nimrim  it  was  a  luxury  to  be  able  to  spy  into  the  windows 
of  one  neighbor  at  a  time.  Opposite  Adna  there  were  a 
hundred  and  fifty  neighbors  whom  it  cost  nothing  to 
watch.  Some  of  them  were  very  startling ;  some  of  them 
were  stupid  old  ladies  who  rocked,  or  children  who 
flattened  their  noses  against  the  windows,  or  Pekingese 
doglets  who  were  born  with  their  noses  against  a  pane, 
apparently.  But  some  of  the  neighbors  were  fascinatingly 
careless  of  inspection — and  they  always  promised  to  be 
more  careless  than  they  were. 

Mrs.  Thropp  came  rushing  in  from  the  kitchen.  She 
had  been  trying  in  vain  to  make  a  friend  of  Kedzie's  one 

440 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

servant.  But  this  maid,  like  a  self-respectful  employee 
or  a  good  soldier,  resented  the  familiarity  of  an  official 
superior  as  an  indecency  and  an  insult.  She  made  up 
her  mind  to  quit. 

After  Mrs.  Thropp  had  expressed  her  wonderment  at 
seeing  her  children  return,  she  turned  the  full  power  of  her 
hospitality  on  poor  Jim  Dyckman.  He  could  not  give 
notice  and  seek  another  job. 

Mrs.  Thropp's  first  problem  was  the  proper  style  and 
title  of  her  son-in-law. 

"What  am  I  goin'  to  call  you,  anyhow?"  she  said. 
"Jim  sounds  kind  of  familiar  on  short  acquaintance,  and 
James  is  sort  of  distant.  Son-in-law  is  hor'ble,  and  Son 
is —  How  would  you  like  it  if  I  was  to  call  you  'Son'? 
What  does  your  own  mother  call  you?" 

"  Jimsy,"  Jim  admitted,  shamefacedly. 

" Jimsy  is  right  nice,"  said  Mrs.  Thropp,  and  she 
Jimsied  him  thenceforward,  to  his  acute  distress.  He 
found  that  he  had  married  not  Kedzie  only  but  all  the 
Thropps  there  were.  The  father  and  mother  were  the 
mere  foreground  of  a  vast  backward  and  abyss  of  rela- 
tions, beginning  with  a  number  of  Kedzie's  brothers  and 
sisters  and  their  wives  and  husbands.  Jim  was  a  trifle 
stunned  to  learn  what  lowly  jobs  some  of  his  brothers-in- 
law  were  glad  to  hold. 

Mrs.  Thropp  felt  that  it  was  only  right  to  tell  Jim  as 
much  as  she  could  about  his  new  family.  She  told  him  for 
hours  and  hours.  She  described  people  he  had  never 
seen  or  heard  of  and  would  travel  many  a  mile  to  avoid. 
He  had  never  cared  for  genealogy,  and  his  own  long  and 
brilliant  ancestry  did  not  interest  him  in  the  slightest. 
He  had  hundreds  of  relations  of  all  degrees  of  fame  and 
fortune,  and  he  felt  under  no  further  obligation  to  them 
than  to  let  alone  and  be  let  alone. 

His  interest  in  his  new  horde  of  relations-in-law  was 
vastly  less  than  nothing.  But  Mrs.  Thropp  gave  him 
their  names,  their  ages,  habits,  diseases,  vices,  manner- 

441 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

isms,  idiosyncrasies.  She  recotmted  doings  and  sayings 
of  infinite  unimportance  and  uninterest. 

With  the  fatuous,  blindfolded  enthusiasm  of  an  after- 
dinner  speaker  who  rambles  on  and  on  and  on  while 
the  victims  yawn,  groan,  or  fold  their  napkins  and 
silently  steal  away,  Mrs.  Thropp  poured  out  her  lethal 
anecdotes. 

Jim  went  from  weariness  to  restiveness,  to  amazement, 
to  wrath,  to  panic,  to  catalepsy,  before  Kedzie  realized 
that  he  was  being  suffocated  by  these  reminiscences. 
Then  she  intervened. 

Mrs.  Thropp's  final  cadence  was  a  ghastly  thought: 

"Well,  now,  I've  told  you  s'much  about  all  our  folks, 
you  must  tell  me  all  about  yours," 

"The  Lord  forbid!"  said  Jim, 

Mrs.  Thropp  took  this  to  mean  that  he  did  not  dare 
confess  the  scandals  of  his  people.  She  knew,  of  course, 
from  reading,  that  rich  people  are  very  wicked,  but  she 
did  want  to  know  some  of  the  details. 

Jim  refused  to  make  disclosures.  He  was  wakened 
from  his  coma  by  Mrs.  Thropp's  casual  remark: 

"  Say,  Jimsy,  how  do  folks  do,  on  East  here?  Will  your 
mother  call  on  me  and  Kedzie,  or  will  she  look  for  us  to 
call  on  her  first?" 

"My  God!"  thought  Jim. 

"What  say?"  said  Mrs.  Thropp. 

Jim  floundered  and  threshed.  He  had  never  before 
realized  what  his  mother's  famous  pride  might  mean. 
She  had  always  been  only  mother  to  him,  devoted,  tender, 
patient,  forgiving,  amusing,  sympathetic,  anxious,  flat- 
tered by  his  least  attention.  Yet  he  had  heard  her  spoken 
of  as  a  human  glacier  for  freezing  social  climbers  and 
pushers  of  every  sort.  She  was  huge  and  slow;  she  could 
be  frightfully  cold  and  crushing. 

Now  he  understood  what  congelation  the  trembling 
approachers  to  her  majesty  must  have  suffered.  He  was 
afraid  to  think  what  she  would  do  to  the  Thropps.  Her 

442 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

first  glance  would  turn  them  to  icicles  and  her  first  word 
would  snap  them  to  bits. 

It  is  hard  enough  for  any  mother  to  receive  the  news 
that  her  son  is  in  love  with  any  woman  and  wants  to  marry 
her.  Mrs.  Dyckman  must  learn  that  her  adored  child 
had  transferred  his  loyalty  to  a  foreigner,  a  girl  she  had 
never  seen,  could  not  conceivably  have  selected,  and  could 
never  approve.  Even  the  Prodigal  Son,  when  he  went 
home,  did  not  bring  a  wife  with  him.  Ten  to  one  if  he 
had  brought  one  she  would  have  got  no  veal — or  if  she 
got  it  she  would  not  have  cared  for  it. 

Jim  could  not  be  blind  even  now  in  his  alarm  to  Kedzie's 
intense  prettiness,  but  seeing  her  as  through  his  mother's 
eyes  coldly,  he  saw  for  the  first  time  the  plebeiance  of  her 
grace. 

If  she  had  been  strong  and  rugged  her  commonness 
would  have  had  a  certain  vigor;  but  to  be  nearly  refined 
without  being  quite  refined  is  as  harrowing  as  singing 
just  a  little  off  the  key.  To  be  far  off  the  key  is  to  be  in 
another  key,  but  to  smite  at  a  note  and  muff  it  is  excrucia- 
tion. Better  far  to  drone  middle  C  than  to  aim  at  high 
C  and  miss  it  by  a  comma. 

Yet  Jim  understood  that  he  could  not  long  prevent  the 
encounter  of  his  wife  and  her  relatives  with  his  mother 
and  her  relatives.  He  could  not  be  so  boorishly  insolent 
as  to  forbid  the  meeting,  and  he  could  not  be  so  blind  as 
to  expect  success.  He  got  away  at  length  on  the  pretext 
of  making  arrangements  with  his  mother,  who  was  a  very 
busy  woman,  he  said.  Mrs.  Thropp  could  not  imagine 
why  a  rich  woman  should  be  busy,  but  she  held  her  whist. 

Jim  was  glad  to  escape,  even  on  so  gruesome  an  errand, 
and  now  when  he  kissed  Kedzie  good-by  he  had  to  kiss 
momma  as  well.  He  would  almost  rather  have  kissed 
poppa. 

He  entered  his  home  in  the  late  afternoon  with  the 
reluctance  of  boyhood  days  when  he  had  slunk  back  after 

443 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

some  misdemeanor.  He  loathed  his  mission  and  himself 
and  felt  that  he  had  earned  a  trouncing  and  a  disinheri- 
tance. 

He  found  his  mother  and  father  in  the  library  playing, 
or  rather  fighting,  a  game  of  double  Canfield.  In  the 
excitement  of  the  finish  they  were  like  frantic  children, 
tied  in  knots  of  hurry,  squealing  with  emulation.  The 
cards  were  coming  out  right,  and  the  speedier  of  the  two 
to  play  the  last  would  score  two  hundred  and  fifty  to  the 
other's  nothing. 

Mrs.  Dyckman  was  the  more  agile  in  snatching  up  her 
cards  and  placing  them.  Her  eyes  darted  along  the 
stacks  with  certainty,  and  she  came  in  first  by  a  lead  of 
three  cards. 

Dyckman  was  puffing  with  exhaustion  and  pop-eyed 
from  the  effort  to  look  in  seven  directions  at  once.  It 
rendered  him  scarlet  to  be  omtrun  by  his  wife,  who  was  no 
Atalanta  to  look  at.  Besides,  she  always  crowed  over  him 
insufferably  when  she  won,  and  that  was  worse  than  the 
winning.  When  Jim  entered  the  room  she  was  laughing 
uproariously,  pointing  the  finger  of  derision  at  her  husband 
and  crying: 

"Where  did  you  get  a  reputation  as  a  man  of  brains? 
There  must  be  an  awful  crowd  of  simpletons  in  Wall 
Street."  Then  she  caught  sight  of  her  son  and  beckoned 
to  him.  "  Come  in  and  hold  your  father's  head,  Jimsy . ' ' 

"Please  don't  call  me  Jimsy!"  Jim  exploded,  prema- 
turely. 

His  mother  did  not  hear  him,  because  his  father  exploded 
at  the  same  moment : 

"Come  in  and  teach  your  mother  how  to  be  a  sport. 
She  won't  play  fair.  She  cheats  all  the  time  and  has  no 
shame  when  she  gets  caught.  When  she  loses  she  won't 
pay,  and  when  she  wins  she  wants  cash  on  the  nail." 

"Of  course  I  do!" 

"Why,  there  isn't  a  club  in  the  country  that  wouldn't 
expel  you  twice  a  week." 

444 


"Well,  pay  me  what  you  owe  me,  before  you  die  of 
apoplexy." 

"How  much  do  I  owe  you?" 

"Eight  dollars  and  thirty-two  cents." 

"I  do  not!  That's  robbery.  Look  here:  you  omitted 
my  score  twice  and  added  your  own  up  wrong." 

"Did  I  really?" 

"  Do  five  and  two  make  nine?" 

"Don't  they?" 

"They  do  not!" 

"Well,  must  you  have  hydrophobia  about  it?  What 
difference  does  it  make?" 

"  It  makes  the  difference  that  I  only  owe  you  three  dol- 
lars and  twenty-six  cents." 

"All  right,  pay  it  and  simmer  down.  Isn't  he  wonder- 
ful, Jimsy?  He  just  sent  a  check  for  ten  thousand  dollars 
to  the  fund  for  blind  French  soldiers  and  then  begrudges 
his  poor  wife  five  dollars." 

"But  that's  charity  and  this  is  cards:  and  it's  humiliat- 
ing to  think  that  you  haven't  learned  addition  yet." 

Mrs.  Dyckman  winked  at  Jim  and  motioned  him  to  sit 
beside  her.  He  could  not  help  thinking  of  the  humiliating 
addition  he  was  about  to  announce  to  the  family.  While 
his  father  counted  out  the  change  with  a  miserly  accuracy 
he  winked  his  off  eye  at  Jim  and  growled,  with  a  one-sided 
smile: 

"Where  have  you  been  for  the  past  few  days,  and  what 
mischief  have  you  been  up  to?  You  have  a  guilty  face." 

But  Mrs.  Dyckman  threw  her  great  arm  about  his 
great  shoulders,  stared  at  him  as  she  kissed  him,  and 
murmured:  "  You  don't  look  happy.  What's  wrong?" 

Jim  scraped  his  feet  along  the  floor  gawkily  and  mum- 
bled: "Well,  I  suppose  I'd  better  tell  you.  I  was  going 
to  break  it  to  you  gently,  but  I  don't  know  how." 

Mrs.  Dyckman  took  alarm  at  once.  "Break  it 
gently?  Bad  news?  Oh,  Jim,  you  haven't  gone  and  got 
yourself  engaged  to  some  fool  girl,  have  you?  Not  that?" 

445 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Worse  than  that,  mother!" 

"Oh  dear!  what  could  be  worse?  Only  one  thing, 
Jim!  You  haven't — you  haven't  married  a  circus-rider 
or  a  settlement-worker  or  anything  like  that,  have  you?" 

"No." 

"Lord!  what  a  relief!     I  breathe  again." 

Jim  fired  off  his  secret  without  further  delay.  "I've 
been  married,  though." 

"Married?  Already?  Married  to  what?  Anybody  I 
ever  heard  of?" 

His  mother  was  gasping  in  a  dangerous  approach  to 
heart  failure.  Jim  protested. 

"You  never  saw  her,  but  she's  a  very  nice  girl.  You'll 
love  her  when  you  meet  her." 

Jim's  father  sputtered  as  he  pulled  himself  out  of  his 
chair :  ' '  Wha-what's  this ?  You — you  damned  young  cub ! 
You — why — what — who — oh,  you  jackass!  You  big, 
lumbering,  brainless,  heartless  bonehead!  Oh — whew! 
Look  at  your  poor  mother!" 

Jim  was  frightened.  She  was  pounding  at  her  huge 
breast  with  one  hand  and  clutching  her  big  throat  with 
another.  Her  husband  whirled  to  a  siphon,  filled  a  glass 
with  vichy,  and  gave  it  to  Jim  to  hold  to  her  lips  while  he 
ran  to  throw  open  a  window. 

Jim  knelt  by  his  mother  and  felt  like  Cain  bringing  home 
the  news  of  the  first  crime.  Her  son's  remorse  was  the 
first  thing  that  Eve  felt,  no  doubt;  at  least,  it  was  the  first 
that  Mrs.  Dyckman  understood  when  the  paroxysm  left 
her.  She  felt  so  sorry  for  her  lad  that  she  could  not 
blame  him.  She  blamed  the  woman,  of  course.  She 
cried  awhile  before  she  spoke;  then  she  caressed  Jim's 
cheeks  and  blubbered: 

"  But  we  mustn't  make  too  much  of  a  fuss  about  a  little 
thing  like  a  wedding.  It's  his  first  offense  of  the  kind. 
I  suppose  he  fell  into  the  trap  of  some  little  devil  with  a 
pretty  face.  Poor  innocent  child,  with  no  mother  to 
protect  him!" 

446 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Poor  innocent  scoundrel!"  old  Dyckman  snarled. 
"He  probably  got  her  into  trouble,  and  she  played  on  his 
sympathy." 

This  was  what  Jim  sorely  needed,  some  unjust  accusa- 
tion to  spur  him  out  of  his  shame.  He  sprang  to  his  feet 
and  confronted  his  father. 

"  Don't  you  dare  say  a  word  against  my  wife." 

"Oh,  look  at  him!"  his  father  smiled.  "He's  grown 
so  big  he  can  lick  his  old  dad.  Well,  let  me  tell  you,  my 
young  jackanapes,  that  if  anybody  has  said  anything 
against  your  wife  it  was  you." 

"What  have  I  said?" 

"You've  said  that  you  married  her  secretly.  You've 
not  dared  to  let  us  see  her  first.  You've  not  dared  to 
announce  your  engagement  and  take  her  to  the  church  like 
a  gentleman.  Why?  Why?  Answer  me  that,  before 
you  grow  so  tall.  And  who  is  she,  anyway?  I  hear  that 
you  had  a  prize-fight  with  Peter  Cheever  and  got  expelled 
from  the  club." 

"When  did  you  hear  that?" 

"It's  all  over  town.  What  was  the  fight  about? 
Was  he  interested  in  this  lady,  too?" 

One  set  of  Jim's  muscles  leaped  to  the  attack;  another 
set  held  them  in  restraint. 

"Be  careful,  dad!"  he  groaned  "Peter  Cheever  never 
met  my  wife." 

"Well,  then,  what  were  you  fighting  him  about?" 

"That's  my  business." 

"Well,  it's  my  business,  too,  when  I  find  the  name  of 
my  son  posted  for  expulsion  on  the  board  of  my  pet  club. 
You  used  to  be  sweet  on  Cheever's  wife.  You  weren't 
fighting  about  her,  were  you?" 

This  chance  hit  jolted  the  bridegroom  so  perceptibly 
that  his  father  regretted  having  made  it.  He  gasped: 

' '  Great  Lord,  but  you're  the  busy  young  man !  Solomon 
in  all  his  glory — " 

"Let  him  alone  now,"  Mrs.  Dyckman  broke  in,  "or 

447 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

you'll  have  me  on  your  hands."  She  needed  only  her 
husband's  hostility  to  inflame  her  in  defense  of  her  son. 
"If  he's  married,  he's  married,  and  words  won't  divorce 
him.  We  might  as  well  make  the  best  of  it.  I've  no 
doubt  the  girl  is  a  darling,  or  Jim  wouldn't  have  cared  for 
her.  Would  you,  Jimsy?" 

"Naturally  not,"  Jim  agreed,  with  a  rather  sickly 
enthusiasm. 

"Is  she  nice-looking?" 

"She  is  famous  for  her  beauty." 

"Famous!  Oh,  Heavens!  That  sounds  ominous.  You 
mean  she's  well  known?" 

"Very — in  certain  circles." 

"In  certain  circles!"  Mrs.  Dyckman  was  like  a  ter- 
rified echo.  She  had  known  of  such  appalling  misalliances 
that  there  was  no  telling  how  far  her  son  might  have 
descended. 

Old  Dyckman  snarled,  "Do  you  mean  that  you've  gone 
slumming  for  a  wife?" 

Jim  dared  not  answer  this.  His  mother  ignored  it,  too. 
But  her  thoughts  were  in  a  panic. 

"What  circles  is  she  famous  in,  your  wife,  for  her 
beauty?" 

Jim  could  not  achieve  the  awful  word  "movies"  at  the 
moment.  He  prowled  round  it. 

"In  professional  circles." 

"Oh,  an  actress,  then?" 

"Well,  sort  of." 

"They  call  everything  an  actress  nowadays.  She  isn't 
a — a  chorus-girl  or  a  show-girl?" 

"Lord,  no!"  His  indignation  was  reassuring  to  a  de- 
gree. 

His  father  broke  in  again,  "It  might  save  a  few  hours 
of  dodging  and  cross-examination  if  you'd  tell  us  who  and 
what  she  is." 

"She  is  known  professionally  as  Anita  Adair." 

So  parochial  a  thing  is  fame  that  the  title  which  millions 
448 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

of  people  had  learned  to  know  and  love  meant  absolutely 
nothing  to  the  Dyckmans.  They  were  so  ignorant  of  the 
new  arts  that  even  Mary  Pickford  meant  hardly  more  to 
them  than  Picasse  or  Matisse. 

Jim  brought  out  a  photograph  of  Kedzie,  a  small 
one  that  he  carried  in  his  pocket-book  for  company. 
The  problem  of  what  she  looked  like  distracted  atten- 
tion for  the  moment  from  the  problem  of  what  she 
did  and  was. 

Mrs.  Dyckman  took  the  picture  and  perused  it  anx- 
iously. Her  husband  leaned  over  her  shoulder  and  studied 
it,  too.  He  was  mollified  and  won  by  the  big,  gentle  eyes 
and  that  bee-stung  upper  lip.  He  grumbled: 

"Well,  you're  a  good  chooser  for  looks,  anyway. 
Sweet  little  thing." 

Mrs.  Dyckman  examined  the  face  more  knowingly. 
She  saw  in  those  big,  innocent  eyes  a  serene  selfishness 
and  a  kind  of  sweet  ruthlessness.  In  the  pouting  lips  she 
saw  discontent  and  a  gift  for  wheedling.  But  all  she  said 
was,  "She's  a  darling." 

Jim  caught  the  knell-tone  in  her  praise  and  feared  that 
Kedzie  was  dead  to  her  already.  He  saw  more  elegy  in 
her  sigh  of  resignation  to  fate  and  her  resolution  to  take 
up  her  cross — the  mother's  cross  of  a  pretty,  selfish 
daughter-in-law. 

"You  haven't  told  us  yet  how  she  won  her — fame,  you 
said." 

And  now  Jim  had  to  tell  it. 

"She  has  had  great  success  in  the — the — er — pictures." 

"She's  a  painter — an  illustrator?" 

"No,  she — well — you  know,  the  moving  pictures  have 
become  very  important;  they're  the  fifth  largest  industry 
in  the  world,  I  believe,  and — " 

The  silence  of  the  parents  was  deafening.     Their  eyes 
rolled  together  and  clashed,  as  it  were,  like  cannon-balls 
meeting.     Dyckman  senior  dropped  back  into  his  chair 
and  whistled  "Whew!"     Then  he  laughed  a  little: 
29  449 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Well,  I'm  sure  we  should  be  proud  of  our  alliance  with 
the  fifth  largest  industry.  The  Dyckmans  are  coming  up 
in  the  world." 

"Hush!"  said  Mrs.  Dyckman.  She  was  thinking  of  the 
laugh  that  rival  mothers  would  have  on  her.  She  was 
thinking  of  the  bitterness  of  her  other  children,  of  her 
daughter  who  was  a  duchess  in  England,  and  of  the 
squirming  of  her  relatives-in-law.  But  she  was  too  fond 
of  her  boy  to  mention  her  dreads.  She  passed  on  to  the 
next  topic. 

"Where  are  you  living?" 

"Nowhere  yet,"  Jim  confessed.  "We  just  got  in  from 
our — er — honeymoon  this  morning.  We  haven't  decided 
what  to  do." 

Then  Mrs.  Dyckman  took  one  of  those  heroic  steps  she 
was  capable  of. 

"You'd  better  bring  her  here." 

"  Oh  no;  she'd  be  in  your  way.     She'd  put  you  out." 

"I  hope  not,  not  so  soon,"  Mrs.  Dyckman  laughed, 
dismally.  "She'll  probably  not  like  us  at  all,  but  we  can 
start  her  off  right. ' ' 

"That's  mighty  white  of  you,  mother." 

"Did  you  expect  me  to  be — yellow?" 

"No,  but  I  thought  you  might  be  a  little — blue." 

"If  she'll  make  you  happy  I'll  thank  Heaven  for  her 
every  day  and  night  of  my  life.  So  let's  give  her  every 
chance  we  can,  and  I  hope  she'll  give  us  a  chance." 

Jim's  arms  were  long  enough  to  encircle  her  and  hug 
her  tight.  He  whispered  to  her,  "I  never  needed  you 
more,  you  God-blessed — mother!" 

Her  tears  streamed  down  her  cheeks  upon  his  lips,  and 
he  had  a  little  taste  of  the  bitterness  of  maternal  love. 
She  felt  better  after  she  had  cried  a  little,  and  she  said, 
with  courage: 

"Now  we  mustn't  keep  you  away  from  her.  If  you 
want  me  to,  I'll  go  along  with  you  and  call  on  her  and 
extend  a  formal  invitation." 

450 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Jim  could  not  permit  his  revered  mother  to  make  so 
complete  a  submission  as  that.  He  shook  his  head: 

"That  won't  be  necessary.     I'll  go  get  Kedzie." 

"Kedzie?     I  thought  her  name  was  Anita." 

"  That  was  her  stage  name — her  film  name." 

"Oh!     And  her  name  wasn't  Adair,  either,  perhaps?" 

"No,  it  was — er— Thropp!" 

"Oh!"  She  wanted  to  say  "What  a  pretty  name!"  to 
make  it  easier  for  him,  but  she  could  not  arrange  the  words 
on  her  tongue.  She  asked,  instead,  "  Is  she  American?" 

"American?     I  should  say  so !     Born  in  Missouri." 

Another  "Oh!"  from  the  mother. 

Jim  swallowed  a  bit  more  of  quinine  and  made  his' 
escape,  saying: 

"You're  as  fine  as  they  make  'em,  mother.  I  won't  be 
gone  long." 

The  father  was  so  disgusted  with  the  whole  affair  that 
he  could  only  save  himself  from  breaking  the  furniture 
by  a  sardonic  taunt: 

"Tell  our  daughter-in-law  that  if  she  wants  to  bring 
along  her  camera  she  can  have  the  ballroom  for  a  studio. 
We  never  use  it,  anyway." 

"Shame  on  you!"  his  wife  cried.  "Don't  mind  him, 
Jimsy." 

"  Jimsy"  reminded  Jim  of  Mrs.  Thropp  and  his  promise 
to  ask  his  mother  to  call  on  her.  But  he  had  confessed 
all  that  he  could  endure.  He  was  glad  to  get  away  with- 
out letting  slip  the  fact  that  "Thropp"  had  changed  to 
' '  Dyckman ' '  via  ' '  Gilf oyle. ' ' 

His  mother  called  him  back  for  another  embrace  and 
then  let  him  go.  She  had  nowhere  to  turn  for  support  but 
to  her  raging  husband,  and  she  found  herself  crying  her 
eyes  out  in  his  arms.  He  had  his  own  heartbreak  and 
pridebreak,  but  he  was  only  a  man  and  no  sympathy  need 
be  wasted  on  him.  He  wasted  none  on  himself.  He 
laughed  ruefully. 

"You  were  saying,  mother,  only  awhile  ago  that  you 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

wished  he'd  marry  some  nice  girl.  Well,  he's  married,  and 
we'll  have  to  take  what  he  brings  us.  But,  oh,  these 
children,  these  damned  children!" 

A  little  later  he  was  trying  to  brace  himself  and  his  wife 
against  the  future. 

"After  all,  marriage  is  only  an  infernal  gamble.  We 
might  have  scoured  the  world  and  picked  out  an  angel 
for  him,  and  she  might  have  run  off  with  the  chauffeur  the 
second  week.  I  guess  I  got  the  only  real  angel  that's  been 
captured  in  the  last  fifty  years.  The  boy  may  have  stum- 
bled on  a  prize  unbeknownst.  We'll  give  the  kid  the 
benefit  of  the  doubt,  anyway.  Won't  we?" 

"Of  course,  dear,  if  she'll  give  us  the  same." 

"Well,  Jim  said  she  came  from  Missouri.  We've  got 
to  show  her." 

"Ring  for  Wotton,  will  you?" 

"What  are  you  going  to  tell  him?" 

"The  truth." 

"Good  Lord!     Do  you  dare  do  that?" 

"I  don't  dare  not  to.  They'll  find  it  out  down-stairs 
quickly  enough  in  their  own  way." 

"I  see.     You  want  to  beat  'em  to  it." 

"Exactly." 

For  years  the  American  world  had  been  discussing  the 
duty  of  parents  to  teach  their  children  the  things  they 
must  inevitably  learn  in  uglier  and  more  perilous  ways. 
There  were  editorials  on  it,  stories,  poems,  novels,  number- 
less volumes.  It  even  reached  the  stage.  Mrs.  Dyck- 
man  had  left  her  own  children  to  find  things  out  for  them- 
selves. It  occurred  to  her  that  she  should  not  make  the 
same  mistake  with  the  eager  servants  who  gave  the  walls 
ears  and  the  keyholes  eyes. 

It  was  a  ferocious  test  of  her  courage,  but  she  knew  that 
she  would  have  all  possible  help  from  Wotton.  He  had 
not  only  been  the  head  steward  of  the  family  ship  in 
countless  storms,  but  he  had  an  inherited  knowledge  of 
the  sufferings  of  homes.  He  had  learned  his  profession 

452 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

as  page  to  his  father,  who  had  been  a  butler  and  the  son  of 
a  butler. 

Wotton  came  in  like  a  sweet  old  earl  and  waited  while 
Mrs.  Dyckman  gathered  strength  to  say  as  offhandedly 
as  if  she  were  merely  announcing  that  Jim  was  arrested 
for  murder: 

"Oh,  Wotton,  I  wanted  to  tell  you  that  Mr.  James 
Dyckman  has  just  brought  us  the  news  of  his  marriage." 

Wotton 's  eyebrows  went  up  and  his  hands  sought  each 
other  and  whispered  together  as  he  faltered : 

"  Indeed,  ma'am!     That  is  a  surprise,  isn't  it?" 

"He  has  married  a  very  brilliant  young  lady  who  has 
had  great  success  in — ah — in  the — ah — moving  pictures." 

The  old  man  gulped  a  moment,  but  finally  got  it  down. 
"The  moving  pictures!  Indeed,  ma'am!  My  wife  and 
I  are  very  fond  of  the — the  movies,  as  the  saying  is." 

"Everybody  is,  isn't  they — aren't  they?  Perhaps  you 
have  seen  Miss  Anita  Adair  in  the — er — pictures." 

"Miss  Anita  Adair?  Oh,  I  should  say  we  'ave!  And 
is  she  the  young  lady?" 

"Yes.     They  are  coming  to  live  with  us  for  a  time." 

"Oh,  that  will  be  very  pleasant!  Quite  an  honor,  you 
might  say —  That  will  make  two  extra  at  dinner,  then?" 

"Yes.  No — that  is,  we  were  expecting  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Schuyler,  but  I  wish  you  would  telephone  them  that  I  am 
quite  ill — not  very,  you  understand — a  bad  cold,  I  think, 
would  be  best.  Something  to  keep  me  to  my  room  for  the 
day." 

"Very  good,  ma'am.     Was  there  anything  else?" 

"No — oh  yes — ask  Mrs.  Abby  to  have  the  Louis  Seize 
room  made  ready,  will  you?" 

"Very  good — and  some  flowers,  per'aps,  I  suppose." 

"Yes." 

"Thank  you." 

He  shuffled  out,  bowed  under  the  weight  of  the  calamity, 
as  if  he  had  an  invisible  trunk  on  his  back.  He  gathered 
the  servants  in  solemn  conclave  in  their  sitting-room  and 

453 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

delivered  a  funeral  oration  over  young  Mr.  Jim.  There 
were  tears  in  the  eyes  of  the  women-servants  and  curses 
in  the  throats  of  the  men.  They  all  adored  Mr.  Jim, 
and  their  recent  pride  in  his  triumph  over  Peter  Cheever 
was  turned  to  ashes.  He  had  married  into  the  movies! 
They  supposed  that  he  must  have  been  drinkin'  very  'ard. 
Jim's  valet  said: 

"This  is  as  good  as  handin'  me  my  notice." 
But,  then,  Dallam  was  a  ratty  soul  and  was  for  desert- 
ing a  sinking  ship.  Wotton  and  the  others  felt  that  their 
loyalty  was  only  now  to  be  put  to  the  test.  They  must 
help  the  old  folks  through  it.  There  was  one  ray  of  hope : 
such  marriages  did  not  last  long  in  America. 


CHAPTER  VII 

JIM  hastened  to  Kedzie,  and  she  greeted  him  with 
anxiety.  She  saw  by  his  radiant  face  that  he  brought 
cheerful  news. 

"  I've  seen  mother,"  he  exclaimed,  "and  she's  tickled  to 
death  with  your  picture.  She  wants  to  see  you  right 
away.  She  wouldn't  listen  to  anything  but  your  coming 
right  over  to  live  at  our  house  till  we  decide  what  we  want 
to  do." 

Kedzie's  heart  turned  a  somersault  of  joy;  then  it 
flopped. 

"I've  got  no  clothes  fit  for  your  house." 

"Oh,  Lord!"  Jim  groaned.  "What  do  you  think  we 
are,  a  continual  reception?  You  can  go  out  to-morrow 
and  shop  all  you  want  to." 

"We-ell,  all  ri-ight,"  Kedzie  pondered. 

Jim  was  taken  aback  at  her  failure  to  glow  with  his  suc- 
cess; and  when  she  said,  "I  hate  to  leave  momma  and 
poppa,"  he  writhed. 

He  had  neither  the  courage  nor  the  inclination  to  invite 
them  to  come  along  and  make  a  jolly  house-party.  There 
was  room  enough  for  a  dozen  Thropps  in  the  big  house, 
but  he  doubted  if  there  were  room  in  his  mother's  heart 
for  three  Thropps  at  a  time,  or  for  the  elder  Thropps  at 
any  time.  After  all,  his  mother  had  some  rights.  He 
protected  them  by  lying  glibly. 

"My  mother  sent  you  her  compliments,  Mrs.  Thropp, 
and  said  she  would  call  on  you  as  soon  as  she  could. 
She's  very  busy,  you  know — as  I  told  you.  Well,  come 

455 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

along,  Kedzie.  I'd  like  to  have  you  home  in  time  for 
dinner." 

"You  dress  for  dinner,  I  suppose." 

"Well,  usually — yes." 

"  But  I  haven't— " 

"If  you  dare  say  it,  I'll  murder  you.  What  do  they 
care  what  you've  got  on?  They  want  to  meet  you,  not 
your  clothes." 

She  saw  that  he  was  in  no  mood  to  be  trifled  with;  so 
she  delayed  only  long  enough  to  fling  into  a  small  trunk 
a  few  of  her  best  duds.  She  remembered  with  sudden 
joy  that  Ferriday  had  made  her  a  gift  of  one  or  two  of  the 
gowns  Lady  Powell-Carewe  had  designed  for  her  camera- 
appearances,  and  she  took  them  along  for  her  debut  into 
the  topmost  world.  Jim  arranged  by  telephone  for  the 
transportation  of  her  luggage,  and  they  set  out  on  their 
new  and  hazardous  journey. 

Kedzie  bade  her  mother  and  father  a  farewell  implying 
a  beautiful  distress  at  parting.  She  thought  it  looked  well, 
and  she  felt  that  she  owed  to  her  mother  her  present 
splendor.  She  was  horribly  afraid,  too,  of  the  ordeal 
ahead  of  her.  She  was,  indeed,  approaching  one  of  the 
most  terrifying  of  duels:  the  first  meeting  of  a  mother  and 
a  wife. 

Kedzie  was  not  half  so  afraid  as  the  elder  Dyckmans 
were;  for  she  had  her  youth  and  her  beauty,  and  they  were 
only  a  plain,  fat  old  rich  couple  whose  last  remaining  son 
had  been  stolen  from  them  by  a  stranger  who  might  take 
him  from  them  altogether  or  fling  him  back  at  their  feet 
with  a  ruined  heart. 

In  her  moving  pictures  Kedzie  had  played  the  million- 
airess many  a  time,  had  driven  up  in  state  to  mansions, 
and  been  admitted  by  moving-picture  butlers  with  frozen 
faces  and  only  three  or  four  working  joints.  She  had 
played  the  millionairess  in  boudoir  and  banquet-hall;  she 
had  been  loved  by  nice  princes  and  had  foiled  wicked 
barons.  She  had  known  valets  and  grooms  and  footmen 

456 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

familiarly;  but  they  had  all  been  moving-picture  people, 
actors  like  herself. 

As  the  motor  approached  the  Dyckman  palace  she 
recalled  what  Ferriday  had  told  her  about  how  different 
real  life  in  milliona^redom  was  from  studio  luxury,  and 
she  almost  wished  she  had  stayed  married  to  Tommie 
Gilfoyle. 

In  her  terror  she  seized  the  usual  armor  that  terror 
assumes — bluff.  It  would  have  been  far  better  for  her  and 
everybody  if  she  had  entered  meekly  into  the  presence 
of  the  very  human  old  couple  at  her  approach,  and  had 
said  to  them,  not  in  so  many  words,  but  at  least  by  her 
simple  manner: 

"  I  did  not  select  my  birthplace  or  my  parents,  my  soul 
or  my  body  or  my  environment.  I  am  not  ashamed  of 
them,  but  I  want  to  make  the  best  of  them.  I  am  a  new- 
comer in  your  world  and  I  am  only  here  because  your  son 
happened  to  meet  me  and  liked  me  and  asked  me  to  marry 
him.  So  excuse  me  if  I  am  frightened  and  ill  at  ease.  I 
don't  want  to  take  him  away  from  you,  but  I  want  to  love 
you  as  he  does  and  have  you  love  me  as  he  does.  So  help 
me  with  your  wisdom." 

If  she  had  brought  such  a  message  or  implied  it  she 
would  have  walked  right  into  the  living-room  of  the 
parental  hearts.  But  poor  Kedzie  lacked  the  genius  and 
the  inspiration  of  simplicity  and  frankness,  and  she 
marched  up  the  steps  in  a  panic  which  she  disguised  all 
too  well  in  a  pretense  of  scorn  that  proclaimed : 

"I  am  as  good  as  you  are.  I  have  been  in  dozens  of 
finer  homes  than  this.  You  can't  teach  me  anything,  you 
old  snobs.  I've  got  your  son,  and  you'd  better  mind  your 
p's  and  q's." 

Wotton  opened  the  door  and  put  on  as  much  of  a 
wedding  face  as  he  could.  Jim  saw  that  the  old  man  was 
informed,  and  he  said : 

"This  is  Wotton,  my  dear.  He's  the  real  head  of  the 
house." 

457 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Kedzie  might  better  have  shaken  hands  with  him  than 
have  given  him  the  curt  nod  she  begrudged  him.  She 
looked  past  him  to  see  Mrs.  Dyckman,  in  whose  arms  she 
found  herself  smothered.  Mrs.  Dyckman,  in  her  bride- 
fright,  had  rather  rushed  the  situation. 

Kedzie  hardly  knew  what  to  do.  She  was  overawed  by 
the  very  bulk  as  well  as  the  prestige  of  her  mother-in-law. 
She  did  not  quite  dare  to  embrace  Mrs.  Dyckman,  and 
she  could  think  of  nothing  at  all  to  say. 

Mrs.  Dyckman  was  impressed  with  Kedzie's  beauty 
and  paid  it  immediate  tribute. 

"Oh,  but  you  are  an  exquisite  thing!  No  wonder  our 
boy  is  mad  about  you." 

Kedzie's  heart  pranced  at  this,  and  she  barely  checked 
the  giggle  of  triumph  that  bounded  in  her  throat.  But  the 
only  thing  she  could  think  of  was  what  she  dared  not  say : 
"So  you're  the  famous  Mrs.  Dyckman!  Why,  you're 
fatter  than  momma."  She  said  nothing,  but  wore  one  of 
her  most  popular  smiles,  that  look  of  wistful  sweetness 
that  had  melted  countless  of  her  movie  worshipers. 

She  was  caught  from  Mrs.  Dyckman's  shadow  by 
Jim's  father,  who  said,  "Don't  I  get  a  kiss?"  and  took  one. 
Kedzie  returned  this  kiss  and  found  the  old  gentleman 
very  handsome,  not  in  the  least  like  her  father.  Brides 
almost  always  get  along  beautifully  with  fathers-in-law. 
And  so  do  sons-in-law.  Women  will  learn  how  to  get 
along  together  better  as  soon  as  it  ceases  to  fee  so  im- 
portant to  them  how  they  get  along  together. 

After  the  thrill  of  the  first  collision  the  four  stood  in 
silenced  embarrassment  till  Jim,  eager  to  escape,  said: 

"What  room  do  we  get?" 

"Cicely's,  if  you  like,"  his  mother  answered. 

Jim  was  pleased.  Cicely  was  the  duchess  of  the  family, 
and  she  and  her  duke  had  occupied  that  room  before  they 
went  to  England.  Cicely  was  a  war  nurse  now,  bedab- 
bled in  gore,  and  her  husband  was  a  mud-daubed  major 
in  the  trenches  along  the  Somme.  Jim  saw  that  his 

458 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

mother  was  making  no  stint  of  her  hospitality,  and  he  was 
grateful. 

He  dragged  Kedzie  away.  She  was  trying  to  take  in  the 
splendor  of  the  house  without  seeming  to,  and  she  went 
up  the  stairway  with  her  eyes  rolling  frantically. 

In  the  Academy  at  Venice  is  that  famous  picture  of 
Titian's  representing  the  little  Virgin  climbing  up  the 
steps  of  the  Temple,  a  pathetic,  frightened  figure  bearing 
no  trace  of  the  supreme  radiance  that  was  to  be  hers. 
There  was  something  of  the  same  religious  awe  in  Kedzie's 
heart  as  she  mounted  the  steps  of  the  house  that  was  a 
temple  in  her  religion.  She  was  going  up  to  her  heaven 
already.  It  was  perfection  because  it  was  the  next  thing. 

When  Kedzie  reaches  the  scriptural  heaven,  if  she  does 
(and  it  will  be  hard  for  Anybody  to  deny  her  anything 
that  she  sets  her  heart  on) ,  she  will  be  happy  till  she  gets 
there  and  finds  that  she  is  only  in  the  first  of  the  seven 
heavens.  But  what  will  the  poor  girl  do  when  she  goes 
on  up  and  up  and  up  and  learns  at  last  that  there  is  no 
eighth?  She  will  weep  like  another  Alexander  the  Great, 
because  there  are  no  more  heavens  to  hope  for. 

Jim  led  her  into  the  best  room  there  was  up-stairs,  and 
told  her  that  a  duke  had  slept  there.  At  first  she  was 
thrilled  through.  Later  it  would  occur  to  her,  not  tragi- 
cally, yet  a  bit  quellingly,  that,  after  all,  she  had  not 
married  a  duke  herself,  but  only  a  commoner.  She  had  as 
much  right  to  a  title  as  any  other  American  girl.  A 
foreign  title  is  part  of  a  Yankee  woman's  birthright. 
Hundreds  of  women  had  acquired  theirs.  Kedzie  got  only 
a  plain  "Mr." 

Still,  she  told  herself  that  she  must  not  be  too  critical, 
and  she  let  her  enthusiasm  fly.  She  did  not  have  to  pose 
before  Jim,  and  she  ran  about  the  suite  as  about  a  garden. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

"T/^EDZIE  was  smitten  with  two  facts:  the  canopied  bed 
P\.  was  raised  on  a  platform,  and  the  marble  bath-tub 
was  sunk  in  the  floor.  She  sat  on  the  bed  and  bounced 
up  and  down  on  the  springs.  She  stared  up  at  the  tas- 
seled  baldachin  with  its  furled  draperies,  and  fingered  the 
lace  covering  and  the  silken  comforter. 

She  sat  in  the  best  chairs,  studied  the  dressing-table 
with  its  royal  equipment.  She  went  to  the  window  and 
gazed  out  into  Fifth  Avenue,  reviewing  its  slow-flowing 
lava  of  humanity — young  royalty  overlooking  her  subjects. 

Mrs.  Abby,  the  housekeeper,  knocked  and  came  in  to  be 
presented  to  the  new  Princess  of  Wales,  and  to  present 
the  personal  maid  who  had  been  assigned  to  her.  Even 
Mrs.  Dyckman  was  afraid  of  Mrs.  Abby,  who  lacked  the 
suavities  of  Wotton.  Mrs.  Abby  gave  Kedzie  the  chill  of 
her  life,  and  Kedzie  responded  with  an  ardent  hatred. 

The  maid,  a  young  Frenchwoman,  found  her  black 
dress  with  its  black  silk  apron  an  appropriate  uniform, 
since  her  father,  three  brothers,  a  dozen  cousins,  and  two 
or  three  of  her  sweethearts  were  at  the  wars.  Some  of 
them  were  dead,  she  knew,  and  the  others  were  on  their 
way  along  the  red  stream  that  was  bleeding  France  white, 
according  to  German  hopes. 

Liliane,  being  a  foreigner,  saw  in  Kedzie  the  pathos  of 
the  alien,  and  with  the  unequaled  democracy  of  the  French, 
forgave  her  her  plebeiance  for  that  sake.  She  welcomed 
Kedzie' s  beauty,  too,  and  regarded  her  as  a  doll  of  the 
finest  ware,  whom  it  would  be  fascinating  to  dress  up. 
Kedzie  and  Liliane  would  prosper  famously. 

460 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Liliane  resolved  that  when  Kedzie  appeared  at  dinner 
she  should  reflect  credit  not  only  on  "Monsieur  Zheem," 
but  on  Liliane  as  well.  When  Kedzie's  trunk  arrived  and 
Liliane  drew  forth  the  confections  of  Lady  Powell-Carewe 
she  knew  that  she  had  all  the  necessary  weapons  for  a 
sensation. 

Kedzie  felt  more  aristocracy  in  being  fluttered  over  by 
a  French  maid  with  an  accent  than  in  anything  she  had 
encountered  yet.  Liliane's  phrase  "Eef  madame  pair- 
meet"  was  a  constant  tribute  to  her  distinction. 

Jim  retired  to  his  own  dressing-room  and  faced  the 
veiled  contempt  of  his  valet,  leaving  Kedzie  to  the  minis- 
trations of  Liliane,  who  drew  the  tub  and  saw  that  it 
was  just  hot  enough,  sprinkled  the  aromatic  bath-salts, 
and  laid  out  the  towels  and  Kedzie's  things. 

Women  are  born  linen-lovers,  and  Kedzie  was  not 
ashamed  to  have  even  a  millionaire  maid  see  the  things 
she  wore  next  to  her  skin,  and  Liliane  was  delighted  to 
find  by  this  secret  wardrobe  that  her  new  mistress  was 
beautifully  equipped. 

She  waited  outside  the  door  till  Kedzie  had  stepped  from 
the  fragrant  pool — then  came  in  to  aid  in  the  harness- 
ing. She  saw  nothing  but  the  successive  garments  and 
had  those  ready  magically.  She  laced  the  stays  and  slid 
the  stockings  on  and  locked  the  garters  and  set  the 
slippers  in  place.  She  was  miraculously  deft  with  Ked- 
zie's hair,  and  her  suggestions  were  the  last  word  in  tact. 
Then  she  fetched  the  dinner-gown,  floated  it  about  Kedzie 
as  delicately  as  if  it  were  a  ring  of  smoke,  hooked  it, 
snapped  it,  and  murmured  little  compliments  that  were 
more  tonic  than  cocktails. 

When  Jim  came  in  he  was  struck  aglow  by  Kedzie's 
comeliness  and  by  a  certain  authority  she  had.  Liliane 
pointed  to  her,  as  an  artist  might  point  to  a  canvas 
with  which  he  has  had  success,  and  demanded  his  ad- 
miration. His  eyes  paid  the  tribute  his  lips  stammered 
over. 

461 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Kedzie  was  incandescent  with  her  triumph,  and  she 
went  down  the  stairway  to  collect  her  dues. 

Her  parents-in-law  were  waiting,  and  she  could  see  how 
tremendously  they  were  impressed  and  relieved  by  her 
grace.  What  did  it  matter  who  she  was  or  whence  she 
came?  She  was  as  irresistible  as  some  haunting  phrase 
from  a  folk-song,  its  authorship  unknown  and  unimportant, 
its  perfection  inspired. 

Kedzie  floated  into  the  dining-room  and  passed  the 
gantlet  of  the  servants.  Ignoring  them  haughtily,  she 
did  not  ignore  the  sudden  change  of  their  scorn  to  homage. 
Nothing  was  said  or  done;  yet  the  air  was  full  of  her  vic- 
tory. Much  was  forgiven  her  for  her  beauty,  and  she  for- 
gave the  whole  household  much  because  of  its  surrender. 

It  was  a  family  dinner  and  not  elaborate.  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Dyckman  had  arrived  at  the  stage  when  nearly  every- 
thing they  liked  to  eat  or  drink  was  forbidden  to  them. 
Jim  had  an  athlete's  appetite  for  simples,  and  Kedzie  had 
an  actress'  dread  of  fattening  things  and  sweets.  There 
was  a  procession  of  dishes  submitted  to  her  inspection,  but 
seeing  them  refused  first  by  Mrs.  Dyckman,  she  declined 
most  of  them  in  her  turn. 

Kedzie  had  been  afraid  that  she  would  blunder  in  choice 
among  a  long  array  of  forks,  but  she  escaped  the  test,  since 
each  course  was  accompanied  by  the  tools  to  eat  it  with. 
There  was  a  little  champagne  to  toast  the  bride  in. 

She  found  the  grandeur  of  the  room  belittling  to  the 
small  party  at  table.  There  were  brave  efforts  to  make 
her  feel  at  home  and  brief  sallies  of  high  spirits,  but  there 
was  no  real  gaiety.  How  could  there  be,  when  there  was 
no  possible  congeniality?  The  elder  couple  had  lived  in  a 
world  unknown  to  Kedzie.  Their  son  had  dazed  them  by 
his  sudden  return  with  a  strange  captive  from  beyond  the 
pale.  She  was  a  pretty  barbarian,  but  a  barbarian  she 
was,  and  no  mistake.  She  was  not  so  barbaric  as  they  had 
feared,  but  they  knew  nothing  of  her  past  or  of  her. 

It  is  not  good  manners  to  deal  in  personal  questions; 

462 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

yet  how  else  could  such  strangers  come  to  know  one 
another?  The  Dyckmans  were  afraid  to  quiz  her  about 
herself,  and  she  dared  not  cross-examine  them.  They  had 
no  common  acquaintances  or  experiences  to  talk  over. 
The  presence  of  the  servants  was  depressing,  and  when 
the  long  meal  was  over  and  the  four  Dyckmans  were  alone 
in  the  drawing-room,  they  were  less  at  ease  than  before. 
They  had  not  even  knives  and  forks  to  play  with. 

Mrs.  Dyckman  said  at  length,  "Are  you  going  to  the 
theater,  do  you  think?" 

Jim  did  not  care — or  dare — to  take  his  bride  abroad 
just  yet.  He  shook  his  head.  Mrs.  Dyckman  tried 
again : 

"Does  your  wife  play — or  sing,  perhaps?" 

"No,  thank  you,"  said  Kedzie,  and  sank  again. 

Mrs.  Dyckman  was  about  to  ask  if  she  cared  for  cards, 
but  she  was  afraid  that  she  might  say  yes.  She  grew  so 
desperate  at  last  that  she  made  a  cowardly  escape: 

"I  think  we  old  people  owe  it  to  you  youngsters  to 
leave  you  alone."  She  caught  up  her  husband  with  a 
glance  like  a  clutching  hand,  and  he  made  haste  to  follow 
her  into  the  library. 

Jim  and  Kedzie  looked  at  each  other  sheepishly.  Ked- 
zie was  taking  her  initiation  into  the  appalling  boredom 
that  can  close  down  in  a  black  fog  on  the  homes  and  souls 
of  the  very  wealthy.  She  was  astounded  and  terrified  to 
realize  that  there  is  no  essential  delight  attending  the 
possession  of  vast  means.  Later  she  was  to  find  herself 
often  one  of  large  and  glittering  companies  where  nothing 
imaginable  was  lacking  to  make  one  happy  except  the 
power  to  be  happy.  She  would  go  to  dinners  where  an 
acute  melancholia  seemed  to  poison  the  food,  where  people 
of  the  widest  travel  and  unfettered  opportunities  could 
find  nothing  to  say  to  one  another. 

If  she  had  loved  Jim  more  truly,  or  he  her,  they  could 
have  been  blissful  in  spite  of  their  lack  of  hardships; 
but  the  excitement  of  flirtation  had  gone  out  of  their 

463 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

lives.  There  seemed  to  be  nothing  more  to  be  afraid  of 
except  unhappiness.  There  seemed  to  be  nothing  to  be 
excited  about  at  all.  Time  would  soon  provide  them 
with  wild  anxieties,  but  he  withheld  his  hand  for  the 
moment. 

Jim  saw  that  Kedzie  was  growing  restless.  He  dragged 
himself  from  his  chair  and  clasped  her  in  his  arms,  but  the 
element  of  pity  in  his  deed  took  all  the  fire  out  of  it.  He 
led  her  about  the  house  and  showed  her  the  pictures  in 
the  art  gallery,  but  she  knew  nothing  about  painters  or 
paintings,  and  once  around  the  gallery  finished  that  room 
for  her  forever.  There  were  treasures  in  the  library  to 
fascinate  a  bibliophile  for  years,  but  Kedzie  knew  nothing 
and  cared  less  about  books  as  books:  and  a  glance  into 
the  somber  chamber  where  the  old  people  played  cards 
listlessly  drove  her  from  that  door. 

The  dinner  had  begun  at  eight  and  finished  at  half 
past  nine.  It  was  ten  o'clock  now,  and  too  late  to  go  to 
the  theater.  The  opera  season  was  over.  There  would 
be  the  dancing-places,  but  neither  of  the  two  felt  vivacity 
enough  for  dancing  or  watching  others  dance. 

For  lack  of  anything  better,  Jim  proposed  a  drive.  He 
was  mad  for  air  and  exercise.  He  would  have  preferred 
a  long  walk,  and  so  would  Kedzie,  but  she  could  not  have 
walked  far  without  changing  her  costume  and  her  slippers. 

She  was  glad  of  the  chance  to  escape  from  the  house. 
Jim  rang  for  Wotton  and  asked  to  have  a  car  brought 
round.  They  put  on  light  wraps  and  went  down  the 
steps  to  the  limousine. 

The  Avenue  was  lonely  and  the  Park  was  lonelier. 
And,  strangely,  now  that  they  were  together  in  the  dark 
they  felt  happier;  they  drew  more  closely  together. 
They  were  common  people  now,  and  they  had  moonlight 
and  stars,  a  breeze  and  a  shadowy  landscape;  they  shared 
them  with  the  multitude,  and  they  were  happy  for  a  while. 

Something  in  Kedzie's  heart  whispered:  "What's  the 
use  of  being  rich?  What's  the  good  of  living  in  a  palace 

464 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

with  a  gang  of  servants  hanging  over  your  snoulder? 
Happiness  evidently  doesn't  come  from  ordering  whatever 
you  want,  for  by  the  time  somebody  brings  it  to  you 
you  don't  want  it  any  longer.  Happiness  must  be  the 
going  after  something  yourself  and  being  anxious  about 
it." 

If  she  had  listened  to  that  airy  whisperer  she  might 
have  had  an  inkling  of  a  truth.  But  she  dismissed 
philosophy  as  something  stupid.  She  turned  into  Jim's 
arms  like  a  child  afraid  and  clung  to  him,  moaning : 

"Jim,  what  do  I  want?  Tell  me.  I'm  bluer  than  blue, 
and  I  don't  know  why." 

This  was  sufficiently  discouraging  for  Jim.  He  had 
given  the  petulant  child  the  half  of  his  kingdom,  and  she 
was  blue.  If  anything  could  have  made  him  bluer  than 
he  was  it  would  have  been  this  proclamation  of  his  failure. 
He  had  done  the  honorable  thing,  and  it  had  profited 
nobody. 

He  petted  her  as  one  pets  a  spoiled  and  fretful  child 
at  the  end  of  a  long,  long  rainy  day,  with  a  rainy  to-morrow 
ahead. 

When  they  returned  home  the  coziness  of  their  hour 
together  was  lost.  The  big  mansion  was  as  cozy  as  a 
court-house.  It  no  longer  had  even  novelty.  Climbing 
the  steps  had  no  further  mystery  than  the  Louvre  has  to 
an  American  tourist  who  has  promenaded  through  it  once. 

Her  room  was  brilliant  and  beautiful,  but  the  things  she 
liked  about  it  most  were  the  homely,  comfortable  touches : 
her  bedroom  slippers  by  her  chair,  her  nightgown  laid 
across  her  pillow,  and  the  turned-down  covers  of  the  bed. 

Liliane  knocked  and  came  in,  and  Jim  retreated.  It 
was  pleasant  for  the  indolent  Kedzie  to  have  the  harness 
taken  from  her.  She  yawned  and  stretched  and  rubbed 
her  sides  when  her  corsets  were  off,  and  when  her  things 
were  whisked  from  sight  and  she  was  only  Kedzie  Thropp 
alone  in  a  nightgown  she  was  more  nearly  glad  than  she 
had  been  for  ever  so  long. 

465 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

She  flung  her  hair  loose  and  ran  about  the  room.  She 
sang  grotesquely  as  she  brushed  her  teeth  and  scumbled 
her  face  with  cold-cream,  rubbed  it  in  and  rubbed  it  out 
again.  She  was  so  glad  to  be  a  mere  girl  in  her  own  flesh 
and  not  much  else  that  she  went  about  the  room  crooning 
to  herself.  She  peeked  out  of  the  window  at  the  Avenue, 
as  quiet  as  a  country  lane  at  this  hour,  save  for  the  motors 
that  slid  by  as  on  skees  and  the  jog-trot  of  an  occasional 
hansom-horse. 

She  was  crooning  when  she  turned  to  see  her  husband 
come  in  in  a  great  bath-robe;  he  might  have  been  a 
solemn  monk,  save  for  the  big  cigar  he  smoked. 

He  was  so  dour  that  she  laughed  and  ran  to  him  and 
flung  him  into  a  chair  and  clambered  into  his  lap  and 
throttled  him  in  her  arms,  crying: 

"Oh,  Jim,  I  am  happy.  I  love  you  and  you  love  me. 
Don't  we?  Say  we  do!" 

"Of  course  we  do,"  he  laughed,  not  quite  convinced. 

He  could  not  resist  her  beauty,  her  warmth,  her  in- 
gratiation.  But  somehow  he  could  not  love  her  soul. 

He  had  refused  to  make  her  his  mistress  before  they 
were  married.  Now  that  they  were  married,  that  was  all 
he  could  make  of  her.  Their  life  together  was  thence- 
forward the  life  of  such  a  pair.  He  squandered  money  on 
her  and  let  her  squander  it  on  herself.  They  had  ferocious 
quarrels  and  ferocious  reconciliations,  periods  of  mutual 
aversion  and  tempests  of  erotic  extravagance,  excursions 
of  hilarious  good-fellowship,  hours  of  appalling  boredom. 

But  there  was  a  curious  dishonesty  about  their  relation : 
it  was  an  intrigue,  not  a  communion.  They  were  never 
closer  to  each  other  than  a  reckless  flirtation.  Some- 
times that  seemed  to  be  enough  for  Kedzie.  Sometimes 
she  seemed  to  flounder  in  an  abyss  of  gloomy  discontent. 

But  sleep  was  sweet  for  her  that  first  night  in  the  bed 
where  the  duchess  had  lain.  She  had  an  odd  dream  that 
she  also  became  a  duchess.  Her  dreams  had  a  way  of 
coming  true. 

466 


CHAPTER  IX 

SO  there  lay  Kedzie  Thropp  of  Nimrim,  Missouri, 
the  Girl  Who  Had  Never  Had  Anything.  At  her 
side  was  the  Man  Who  Had  Always  Had  Everything. 
Under  this  canopy  a  duke  and  duchess  had  lain. 

There  was  an  element  of  faery  in  it;  yet  far  stranger 
things  have  happened  and  will  happen  anew. 

There  was  once  a  Catholic  peasant  of  Lithuania  who 
died  of  the  plague,  leaving  a  baby  named  Martha  Skov- 
ronsky.  A  Protestant  preacher  adopted  the  waif,  and 
while  she  was  yet  a  girl  got  rid  of  her  by  marrying  her  to 
a  common  Swedish  soldier,  a  sergeant.  The  Russians 
bombarded  the  town;  the  Swedes  fled;  and  a  Russian 
soldier  captured  the  deserted  wife  in  the  ruins  of  the  city. 
He  passed  her  on  to  his  marshal.  The  marshal  sold  her 
as  a  kind  of  white  slave  to  a  prince;  the  prince  took  her  to 
Russia  as  his  concubine.  Being  of  a  liberal  disposition, 
he  shared  her  capacious  heart  with  the  young  czar,  who 
happened  to  be  married.  Martha  Skovronsky  bore  him  a 
daughter  and  won  his  heart  for  keeps.  He  had  her 
baptized  in  the  Russian  Church  as  Catherine.  He 
divorced  his  czaritza  that  he  might  marry  the  foundling. 
He  set  on  his  bride's  head  the  imperial  crown  studded  with 
twenty-five  hundred  gems.  She  became  the  Empress 
Catherine  I.  of  Russia  and  went  to  the  wars  with  her 
husband,  Peter  the  Great,  saved  him  from  surrendering 
to  the  Turks,  and  made  a  success  of  a  great  defeat  for  him. 

He  loved  her  so  well  that  when  she  was  accused  of 
flirting  with  another  man  he  had  the  gentleman  decapi- 
tated and  his  head  preserved  in  a  jar  of  alcohol  as  a  mantel 

467 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

ornament  for  Catherine's  room.  When  he  died  she  reigned 
in  his  stead,  recalling  to  her  side  as  a  favorite  the  prince 
who  had  purchased  her  when  she  was  a  captive. 

Alongside  such  a  fantastic  history,  the  rise  of  Kedzia 
Thropp  was  petty  enough.  It  did  not  even  compare  with 
the  rocket-flight  of  that  Theodosia  who  danced  naked 
in  a  vile  theater  in  Byzantium  and  later  became  the 
empress  of  the  great  Justinian. 

Kedzie  had  never  done  anything  very  immoral.  She 
had  been  a  trifle  immodest,  according  to  strict  standards, 
when  she  danced  the  Grecian  dances.  She  had  been 
selfish  and  hard-hearted,  but  she  had  never  sold  her  body. 
And  there  is  no  sillier  lie,  as  there  is  no  commoner  lie, 
than  the  trite  old  fallacy  of  the  popular  novels,  sermons, 
editorials,  and  other  works  of  fiction  that  women  suc- 
ceed by  selling  their  bodies.  It  is  one  of  the  best  ways 
a  girl  can  find  for  going  bankrupt,  and  it  leads  oftener  to 
the  dark  streets  than  to  the  bright  palaces. 

The  credit  for  Kedzie's  staying  virtuous,  as  the  word  is 
used,  was  not  entirely  hers.  Probably  if  all  the  truth  were 
known  women  are  no  oftener  seduced  than  seducing. 
Kedzie  might  have  gone  wrong  half  a  dozen  times  at  least 
if  she  had  not  somehow  inspired  in  the  men  she  met  a 
livelier  sense  of  protection  than  of  spoliation.  She  hap- 
pened not  to  be  a  frenzied  voluptuary,  as  are  so  many  of 
the  lost,  who  are  victims  of  their  own  physiological  or 
pathological  estates  before  they  make  fellow-victims  of 
the  men  they  encounter. 

The  trick  of  success  for  a  woman  who  has  no  other 
stock  in  trade  than  her  charm  is  to  awaken  the  chivalry 
of  men,  to  promise  but  not  relinquish  the  last  favors  till 
the  last  tributes  are  paid. 

Meanwhile  the  old  world  is  rolling  into  the  daylight 
when  women  will  sell  their  wits  instead  of  their  embraces, 
and  when  there  will  be  no  more  compulsion  for  a  woman  to 
rent  her  body  to  pay  her  house  rent  than  for  men  to  do  the 
same.  The  pity  of  it  is  that  these  great  purifying,  equaliz- 

468 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

ing,  freedom-spreading  revolutions  are  gaining  more  oppo- 
sition than  help  from  the  religious  and  the  conservative. 

In  any  case  Kedzie  Thropp,  who  slept  under  a  park 
bench  when  first  she  came  to  town,  found  the  city  honor- 
able, merciful,  generous,  as  most  girls  do  who  have  graces 
N  to  sell  and  sense  enough  to  set  a  high  price  on  them. 

And  so  Kedzie  was  sheltered  and  passed  on  upward 
by  Skip  Magruder  the  lunch-room  waiter,  and  by  Mr. 
Kalteyer  the  chewing-gum  purveyor,  by  Eben  E.  Kiam 
the  commercial  photographer,  by  Thomas  Gilfoyle  the 
advertising  bard,  by  Ferriday  the  motion-picture  director, 
on  up  and  up  to  Jim  Dyckman.  Every  man  gave  her  the 
best  help  he  could.  And  even  the  women  she  met  uncon- 
sciously assisted  her  skyward. 

But  there  is  always  more  sky  above,  and  Kedzie's  motto 
was  a  relentless  Excelsior!  She  spurned  backward  the 
ladders  she  rose  by,  and  it  was  her  misfortune  (which 
made  her  fortune)  that  whatever  rung  she  stood  on  hurt 
her  pretty,  restless  feet.  It  was  inevitable  that  when  at 
last  she  was  bedded  in  the  best  bed  in  one  of  America's 
most  splendid  homes,  she  should  fall  a-dreaming  of 
foreign  splendors  beyond  the  Yankee  sky. 

On  the  second  morning  of  her  honeymoon,  when  Kedzie 
woke  to  find  that  she  was  no  duchess,  but  a  plain  American 
"  Mrs."  that  disappointment  colored  her  second  impression 
of  the  Dyckman  mansion. 

She  had  her  breakfast  in  bed.  But  she  had  enjoyed 
that  dubious  luxury  in  her  own  flat.  Many  poor  and 
lazy  and  sick  people  had  the  same  privilege.  The  things 
she  had  to  eat  were  exquisitely  cooked  and  served,  when 
Liliane  took  them  from  the  footman  at  the  door  and 
brought  them  to  the  bedside. 

But,  after  all,  there  is  not  much  difference  between  the 
breakfasts  of  the  rich  and  of  the  poor.  There  cannot  be: 
one  kind  of  fruit,  a  cereal,  an  egg  or  two,  some  coffee, 
and  some  bread  are  about  all  that  it  is  safe  to  put  into  the 
morning  stomach.  Her  plutocratic  father-in-law  was  not 

469 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

permitted  to  have  even  that  much,  and  her  mother-in-law, 
who  was  one  of  the  converts  to  Vance  Thompson's  Eat 
and  Grow  Thin  scriptures,  had  almost  none  at  all. 

Busy  and  anxious  days  followed  that  morning.  There 
was  a  great  amount  of  shopping  to  do.  There  were  the 
wedding-announcement  cards  to  order  and  the  list  of 
recipients  to  go  over  with  Mrs.  Dyckman's  secretary. 
There  was  a  secretary  to  hire  for  Kedzie,  and  it  was  no 
easy  matter  for  Kedzie  to  put  herself  into  the  woman's 
hands  without  debasing  her  pride  too  utterly. 

There  was  the  problem  of  dinners  to  relatives,  a  recep- 
tion to  guests  for  the  proper  exploitation  of  the  new  Mrs. 
Dyckman.  There  was  the  embarrassment  of  meeting  peo- 
ple who  brought  their  prejudices  with  their  visiting-cards 
and  did  not  leave  their  prejudices  as  they  did  their  cards. 

The  newspapers  had  to  have  their  say,  and  they  did  not 
make  pleasant  reading  to  any  of  the  Dyckmans.  Kedzie 
took  a  little  comfort  from  reading  what  the  papers  had 
to  say  about  Mrs.  Cheever's  divorce,  but  she  found  that 
Jim  was  unresponsive  to  her  gibes.  This  did  not  sweeten 
her  heart  toward  Charity. 

Kedzie  was  hungry  for  friends  and  playmates,  but  she 
could  not  find  them  among  the  new  acquaintances  she 
made.  She  saw  curiosity  in  all  their  eyes,  patronage  in 
those  who  were  cordial,  and  insult  in  those  who  were  not 
effusive.  She  got  along  famously  with  the  men,  but  their 
manner  was  not  quite  satisfactory,  either.  There  was  a 
corrosive  something  in  their  flattery,  a  menace  in  their 
approach. 

There  were  the  horrible  experiences  when  Mrs.  Dyck- 
man called  on  Mrs.  Thropp  and  the  worse  burlesque  when 
Mrs.  Thropp  called  on  Mrs.  Dyckman.  The  servants  had 
a  glorious  time  over  it,  and  Kedzie  overheard  Mrs.  Dyck- 
man's report  of  the  ordeal  to  her  husband.  She  was 
angry  at  Mrs.  Dyckman,  but  angrier  still  at  her  mother. 

Kedzie' s  father  and  mother  were  an  increasing  annoy- 
ance to  Kedzie's  pride  and  her  peace.  They  wanted  to 

470 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

get  out  to  Nimrim  and  make  a  triumph  through  the  vil- 
lage. And  Jim  and  Kedzie  were  glad  to  pay  the  freight. 
But  once  the  Thropps  had  gloated  they  were  anxious  to 
get  back  again  to  the  flesh-pots  of  New  York. 

The  financing  of  the  old  couple  was  embarrassing.  It 
did  not  look  right  to  Kedzie  to  have  the  father  and  mother 
of  Mrs.  Dyckman  a  couple  of  shabby,  poor  relations,  and 
Kedzie  called  it  shameful  that  her  father,  who  was  a  kind 
of  father-in-law-in-law  to  the  duchess,  should  earn  a 
pittance  as  a  claim-agent  in  the  matter  of  damaged  pigs 
and  things. 

Jim,  like  all  millionaires,  had  dozens  of  poor  relations 
and  felt  neither  the  right  nor  the  obligation  to  enrich  them 
all.  There  is  no  gesture  that  grows  tiresome  quicker  than 
the  gesture  of  shoving  the  hand  into  the  cash-pocket, 
bringing  it  up  full  and  emptying  it.  There  is  no  more 
painful  disease  than  money-spender's  cramp. 

Kedzie  learned,  too,  that  to  assure  her  father  and  mother 
even  so  poor  an  income  as  five  thousand  dollars  a  year 
would  require  the  setting  aside  of  a  hundred  thousand 
dollars  at  least  in  gilt-edged  securities.  She  began  to 
have  places  where  she  could  put  a  hundred  thousand 
dollars  herself.  On  her  neck  was  one  place,  for  she  saw  a 
woman  with  a  dog-collar  of  that  price,  and  it  made 
Kedzie  feel  absolutely  nude  in  contrast.  She  met  old 
Mrs.  Noxon  with  her  infamously  costly  stomacher  on,  and 
Kedzie  cried  that  night  because  she  could  not  have  one 
for  her  own  midriff. 

Jim  growled,  "When  you  get  a  stomach  as  big  as 
Mrs.  Noxon's  you  can  put  a  lamp-post  on  it." 

She  said  he  was  indecent,  and  a  miser  besides. 

Meanwhile  her  own  brothers,  sisters,  cousins,  and  aunts 
were  calling  her  a  miser,  a  snob,  a  brute.  The  whole 
family  wanted  to  move  to  New  York  and  make  a  house- 
party.  They  had  every  right  to,  too,  for  did  not  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  make  all  Americans  equal? 

Relatives  whom  Kedzie  had  never  heard  of  and  relatives 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

whom  she  knew  all  too  well  turned  up  in  New  York  with 
schemes  for  extracting  money  from  the  Dyckman  hoard. 
Kedzie  grew  nearly  wroth  enough  to  stand  at  the  window 
and  empty  things  on  them  as  they  dared  to  climb  the 
noble  steps  with  their  ignoble  impertinences. 

When  she  was  not  repelling  repulsive  relatives  Kedzie 
was  trying  to  dodge  old  acquaintances.  It  seemed  that 
everybody  she  had  ever  met  had  learned  of  her  rise  in  the 
world.  Her  old  landladies  wrote  whining  letters.  Moving- 
picture  people  out  of  a  job  asked  her  for  temporary  loans. 

But  the  worst  trial  came  one  day  when  she  was  present 
at  a  committee  meeting  for  a  war-relief  benefit  and  that 
fiend  of  a  Pet  Bettany  proposed  that  one  of  the  numbers 
should  be  Miss  Silsby's  troupe  of  Greek  dancers.  She 
asked  if  anybody  had  any  objections,  and  when  nobody 
spoke  she  turned  to  Kedzie  and  dared  to  ask  her  if  she  had 
ever  seen  the  dancers. 

"Not  recently,"  Kedzie  mumbled,  while  her  very  legs 
blushed  under  their  stockings,  remembering  how  bare  they 
had  been  in  the  old  days  when  she  was  one  of  the  Silsby 
slaves. 

All  the  other  women  simmered  pleasantly  in  the  un- 
comfortable situation  till  Mrs.  Charity  Cheever,  who 
chanced  to  be  there,  came  to  the  rescue  amazingly  by 
turning  the  tables  on  the  Bettany  creature: 

"Anybody  who  ever  saw  you  in  a  bathing-suit,  Pet, 
would  know  that  there  were  two  good  reasons  why  you 
were  never  one  of  the  Silsbies." 

Charity  could  be  cruel  to  be  kind.  Everybody  roared 
at  Pet,  whose  crooked  shanks  had  kept  her  modest  from 
the  knees  down,  at  least.  Kedzie  wanted  to  kiss  Charity, 
but  she  suffered  too  much  from  the  reminder  of  her  past. 

She  fiercely  wanted  to  have  been  born  of  an  aristocratic 
family.  Of  all  the  vain  wishes,  the  retroactive  pluperfect 
are  the  vainest,  and  an  antenatal  wish  is  sublimely  ridicu- 
lous. But  Kedzie  wished  it.  This  was  one  of  the  wishes 
she  did  not  get. 

472 


CHAPTER  X 

MRS.  KEDZIE  DYCKMAN  received  many  jars  of 
ointment,  but  her  pretty  eyes  found  a  fly  in  every 
one.  She  that  should  have  gone  about  boasting,  "  I  came 
from  a  village  and  slept  under  a  park  bench,  and  now  look 
at  me!"  was  slinking  about,  wishing  that  she  could  rather 
say:  "Oh,  see  my  wonderful  ancestors!  Without  them 
you  could  not  see  me  at  all." 

Kedzie  had  her  picture  printed  at  last  in  the  "Social 
World"  departments  of  the  newspapers.  She  had  full- 
page  portraits  of  herself  by  the  mystic  Dr.  Arnold  Genthe 
and  by  other  camera-masters  printed  in  Town  and  Country 
and  The  Spur,  Vanity  Fair,  Vogue,  and  Harper's  Bazar. 
But  some  cursed  spite  half  the  time  led  to  the  statement 
under  her  picture  that  she  had  been  in  the  movies.  No 
adjectives  of  praise  could  sweeten  that.  Small  wonder  she 
pouted! 

And  she  found  the  competition  terrific.  She  had 
thought  that  when  she  got  into  the  upper  world  she  would 
be  on  a  sparsely  populated  plateau.  But  she  said  to  Jim : 

"  Good  Lord !  this  is  a  merry-go-round!  It's  so  crowded 
everybody  is  falling  off." 

The  most  "exclusive"  restaurants  were  packed  like 
bargain-counters.  She  went  to  highly  advertised  balls 
where  there  were  so  many  people  that  the  crowd  simply 
oozed  and  the  effort  to  dance  or  to  eat  was  a  struggle 
for  life. 

New  York's  four  hundred  families  had  swollen,  it 
seemed,  to  four  hundred  thousand,  and  the  journals  of 
society  published  countless  pictures  of  the  aristocratic 

473 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

sets  of  everywhere  else.  There  were  aristocrats  of  the 
Long  Island  sets — a  dozen  sets  for  one  small  island — the 
Berkshire  set,  the  Back  Bay  set,  the  Rhode  Island  reds, 
the  Plymouth  Rock  fowl,  the  old  Connecticut  connections, 
the  Bar  Harbor  oligarchy,  the  Tuxedonians,  the  Morris- 
town  and  Germantown  noblesse,  the  pride  of  Philadelphia, 
the  Baltimorioles,  the  diplomatic  cliques  of  Washington, 
the  Virginia  patricians,  the  Piedmont  Hunt  set,  the  North 
Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Florida,  and  all  the 
other  State  sets,  the  Cleveland  coteries,  the  Chicagocracy, 
the  St.  Louis  and  New  Orleans  and  San  Francisco 
optimates. 

Exclusiveness  was  a  joke.  And  yet  Kedzie  felt  lonely 
and  afraid.  She  had  too  many  rivals.  There  were  young 
girls  in  myriads,  beauties  by  the  drove,  sirens  in  herds, 
millionaires  in  packs.  The  country  was  so  prosperous 
with  the  privilege  of  selling  Europe  the  weapons  of  suicide 
that  the  vast  destructiveness  of  the  German  submarines 
was  a  bagatelle. 

There  was  a  curious  mixture  of  stupendous  Samar- 
itanism  and  tremendous  indifference.  Millions  were 
poured  into  charities  and  millions  were  squandered  on 
dissipation. 

Kedzie' s  funds  were  drawn  away  astoundingly  faster 
than  even  Dyckman  could  replenish  them.  Hideous  ac- 
counts of  starving  legions  were  brandished  before  the  eyes 
of  all  Americans.  Every  day  Kedzie's  mail  contained  cir- 
culars about  blind  soldiers,  orphan-throngs,  bread-lines  in 
every  nation  at  war.  There  were  hellish  chronicles  of 
Armenian  women  and  children  driven  like  cattle  from 
desert  to  desert,  outraged  and  flogged  and  starved  by  the 
thousand. 

The  imagination  gave  up  the  task.  The  miseries  of 
the  earth  were  more  numerous  than  the  sands,  and  the  eyes 
came  to  regard  them  as  impassively  as  one  looks  at  the 
night  sky  without  pausing  to  count  the  flakes  in  that  snow- 
storm of  stars.  One  says,  "  It  is  a  nice  night."  One  said, 

474 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"These  are  terrible  times."  Then  one  said,  " May  I  have 
the  next  dance?"  or,  "Isn't  supper  ready  yet?" 

Kedzie  tried  for  a  while  to  lift  herself  from  the  common 
ruck  of  the  aristocracy  by  outshining  the  others  in  charities 
and  in  splendors.  She  soon  grew  weary  of  the  everlasting 
appeals  for  money  to  send  to  Europe.  She  grew  weary 
of  writing  checks  and  putting  on  costumes  for  bazaars, 
spectacles,  parades,  and  carnivals.  She  found  herself  cir- 
cumscribed by  so  much  altruism.  Her  benevolences  left 
her  too  little  for  her  magnificences. 

She  grew  frantic  for  more  fun  and  more  personal  glory. 
The  extravagance  of  other  women  dazed  her.  Some  of 
them  had  inexhaustible  resources.  Some  of  them  were 
bankrupting  their  own  boodle-bag  husbands.  Some  of 
them  flourished  ingeniously  by  running  up  bills  and  never 
running  them  down. 

The  competition  was  merciless.  She  kept  turning  to 
Jim  for  money.  He  grew  less  and  less  gracious,  because 
her  extravagances  were  more  and  more  selfish.  He  grew 
less  and  less  superior  to  complaints.  He  started  bank- 
accounts  to  get  rid  of  her,  but  she  got  rid  of  them  with  a 
speed  that  frightened  him.  He  hated  to  be  used. 

Kedzie  took  umbrage  at  Mrs.  Dyckman's  manner. 
Mrs.  Dyckman  tried  for  a  while  to  be  good  to  the  child, 
strove  to  love  her,  forgave  her  for  her  youth  and  her 
humble  origin;  but  finally  she  tired  of  her,  because  Kedzie 
was  not  making  Jim's  life  happier,  more  useful,  or  more 
distinguished. 

Then  one  day  Mrs.  Dyckman  asked  Kedzie  for  a  few 
moments  of  her  time.  Kedzie  was  in  a  hurry  to  an  ap- 
pointment at  her  hairdresser's,  but  she  seated  herself 
patiently.  Mrs.  Dyckman  said: 

"My  dear,  I  have  just  had  a  cable  from  my  daughter 
Cicely.  She  has  broken  down,  and  her  physician  has 
ordered  her  out  of  England  for  a  rest.  She  is  homesick, 
she  says,  and  Heaven  knows  we  are  homesick  for  her. 

"I  am  afraid  she  would  not  feel  at  home  in  any  room 

475 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

but  her  old  one,  and  I  know  you  won't  mind.  You  can 
have  your  choice.  Some  of  the  other  rooms  are  really 
pleasanter.  Will  you  look  them  over  and  let  me  know,  so 
that  I  can  have  your  things  moved?" 

"Certainly,  my  dear  m'mah!"  said  Kedzie. 

She  walked  blindly  down  the  Avenue,  snubbing  her  most 
precious  acquaintances.  She  was  being  put  out  of  her 
room!  She  was  being  shoved  back  to  the  second  place. 
They'd  ask  her  to  eat  at  the  second  table  next,  or  have  her 
meals  in  her  room  as  the  secretaries  did. 

Not  much!  Having  slept  in  a  duchess's  bed,  Kedzie 
would  not  backslide.  She  would  get  a  bed  of  her  own. 
She  remembered  a  nice  young  man  she  had  met,  whose 
people  were  in  real  estate.  She  telephoned  to  him  from 
the  Biltmore. 

"Is  that  you,  Polly?  This  is  Kedzie  Dyckman.  Say, 
Polly,  do  you  know  of  a  decent  house  that  is  for  sale  or  rent 
right  away  quick?  Oh,  I  don't  care  how  much  it  costs, 
so  it's  a  cracker  jack  of  a  house.  I  suppose  I've  got  to 
take  it  furnished,  being  in  such  a  hurry;  or  could  you  get 
a  gang  of  decorators  in  and  do  a  rush  job  ?  All  right,  look 
up  your  list  right  away  and  telephone  me  here  at  the 
hairdresser's." 

From  under  her  cascade  of  hair  she  talked  to  him  later 
and  arranged  to  be  taken  from  place  to  place.  She  now 
dismissed  chateaux  with  contempt  as  too  small,  too  old- 
fashioned,  lacking  in  servants'  rooms,  what  not.  She  had 
quite  forgotten  the  poor  little  Mrs.  Gilfoyle  she  had  been, 
and  her  footsore  tramp  from  cheap  flat  to  cheap  flat, 
ending  in  the  place  that  cost  three  hundred  dollars  a  year 
furnished. 

She  finally  decided  not  to  attempt  housekeeping  yet 
awhile,  and  selected  a  double-decked  apartment  of  twenty- 
four  rooms  and  forty-eight  baths.  And  she  talked  the 
agent  down  to  a  rental  of  ten  thousand  dollars  a  year 
unfurnished.  She  would  show  Jim  that  she  could  econ- 
omize. 

476 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

When  Kedzie  told  Mrs.  Dyckman  that  she  had  decided 
to  move,  Mrs.  Dyckman  was  very  much  concerned  lest 
Kedzie  feel  put  out.  But  she  smiled  to  herself:  she  knew 
her  Kedzie. 

Jim  was  not  at  all  pleased  with  the  arrangement,  but  he 
yielded.  In  the  American  family  the  wife  is  the  quarter- 
master, selects  the  camp  and  equips  it.  Jim  spent  more 
of  his  time  at  his  clubs  than  at  his  duplex  home.  So  did 
Kedzie.  She  had  been  railroaded  into  the  Colony  and 
one  or  two  other  clubs  before  they  knew  her  so  well. 

When  the  Duchess  Cicely  came  back  Kedzie  was  in- 
vited to  the  family  dinner,  of  course.  Cicely  was  Kedzie's 
first  duchess,  and  though  Kedzie  had  met  any  number  of 
titled  people  by  now,  she  approached  this  one  with  strange 
apprehensions.  She  was  horribly  disappointed.  Cicely 
turned  out  to  be  a  poor  shred  of  a  woman  in  black,  worn 
out,  meager,  forlorn,  broken  in  heart  and  soul  with  what 
she  had  been  through. 

She  was  plainly  not  much  impressed  with  Kedzie,  and  she 
said  to  her  mother  later:  "Poor  Jim,  he  always  plays 
in  the  rottenest  luck,  doesn't  he?  Still,  he's  got  a  pretty 
doll,  and  what  does  anything  matter  nowadays?" 

She  tried  to  be  polite  about  the  family  banquet.  But 
the  food  choked  her.  She  had  seen  so  many  gaunt  hands 
pleading  upward  for  a  crust  of  bread.  She  had  seen  so 
many  shriveled  lips  guzzling  over  a  bowl  of  soup.  She 
had  seen  so  many  once  beautiful  soldiers  who  had  nothing 
to  eat  anything  with. 

Cicely  apologized  for  being  such  a  death's  head  at  the 
feast,  but  she  was  ashamed  of  her  people,  ashamed  of  her 
country  for  keeping  out  of  the  war  and  fattening  on  it. 
All  the  motives  of  pacifism,  of  neutrality,  of  co-operation 
by  financing  and  munitioning  the  war,  were  foul  in  her 
eyes.  She  knew  only  her  side  of  the  conflict,  and  she 
cared  for  no  other.  She  found  America  craven  and 
indifferent  either  to  its  own  obligations  or  its  own  dangers. 
She  accused  the  United  States  of  basking  in  the  protection 

477 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

of  the  British  navy  and  the  Allied  armies.  She  felt  that 
the  immortal  crime  of  the  Lusitania  with  its  flotsam  of 
dead  women  and  children  was  more  disgraceful  to  the 
nation  that  endured  it  than  to  the  nation  that  committed 
it.  She  was  very,  very  bitter,  and  Kedzie  found  her  most 
depressing  company,  especially  for  a  dinner-table. 

But  she  excited  Jim  Dyckman  tremendously.  He  broke 
out  into  fierce  diatribes  against  the  Chinafying  of  the 
United  States  with  its  Lilliputian  army  guarding  its 
gigantic  interests.  He  began  to  toy  with  the  idea  of  en- 
listing in  the  Canadian  army  or  of  joining  the  American 
aviators  flying  for  France. 

"The  national  bird  is  an  eagle,"  he  said,  with  unwonted 
poesy,  "and  the  best  place  an  American  eagle  can  fly  is 
over  France." 

When  Kedzie  protested:  "But  you've  got  a  family  to 
consider.  Let  the  single  men  go,"  Jim  laughed  louder 
and  longer  than  he  had  laughed  for  weeks. 

Cicely  smiled  her  first  smile  and  squeezed  Jim's  hand. 


CHAPTER  XI 

"L^EDZIE  went  home  early.  It  was  depressing  there, 
l\.  too.  Now  that  she  had  a  house  of  her  own,  she  found 
an  extraordinary  isolation  in  it.  Almost  nobody  called. 

When  she  lived  under  the  Dyckman  roof  she  was  in- 
cluded in  the  cards  left  by  all  the  callers;  she  was  invited 
into  the  drawing-room  to  meet  them;  she  was  present  at 
all  the  big  and  little  dinners,  and  breakfasts  and  teas  and 
suppers. 

People  who  wanted  to  be  asked  to  more  of  the  Dyckman 
meals  and  parties  swapped  meals  and  parties  with  them 
and  included  Kedzie  in  their  invitations,  since  she  was 
one  of  the  family.  She  went  about  much  in  stately  homes, 
and  her  name  was  celebrated  in  what  the  newspapers 
insist  upon  calling  the  "exclusive"  circles. 

Kedzie  laughed  at  the  extraordinary  inclusiveness  of 
their  High  Exclusivenesses  until  she  got  her  own  home. 
And  then  she  learned  its  bitter  meaning.  It  was  not  that 
Mrs.  Dyckman  meant  to  freeze  her  out.  She  urged  her 
to  "come  in  any  time."  But,  as  Kedzie  told  Jim,  "an 
invitation  to  come  any  time  is  an  invitation  to  stay  away 
all  the  time."  Kedzie's  pride  kept  her  aloof.  She  made 
it  so  hard  to  get  her  to  come  that  Mrs.  Dyckman  sin- 
cerely said  to  Cicely: 

"We  are  too  old  and  stupid  for  the  child.  She  is  glad 
to  be  rid  of  us." 

Mrs.  Dyckman  planned  to  call  often,  but  she  was  an 
extremely  busy  woman,  doing  many  good  works  and 
many  foolish  works  that  were  just  as  hard.  She  said, 
^'1  ought  to  call,"  and  failed  to  call,  just  as  one  says, 

479 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"I  ought  to  visit  the  sick,"  and  leaves  them  to  their 
supine  loneliness. 

Thus  Kedzie  floated  out  of  the  swirling  eddies  where  the 
social  driftwood  jostled  in  eternal  circles.  She  sulked  and 
considered  the  formalities  of  who  should  call  on  whom 
and  who  owed  whom  a  call.  New  York  life  had  grown 
too  busy  for  anybody  to  pay  much  attention  to  the  older 
reciprocities  of  etiquette. 

Almost  nobody  called  on  Kedzie.  She  took  a  pride  in 
smothering  her  complaints  from  Jim,  who  was  not  very 
much  alive  to  her  hours.  He  was  busy,  too.  He  had 
joined  the  Seventh  Regiment  of  the  New  York  National 
Guard,  and  it  absorbed  a  vast  amount  of  his  time.  He  had 
gone  to  the  Plattsburg  encampment  the  summer  before 
and  had  kept  up  with  the  correspondence-school  work  in 
map  problems,  and  finally  he  had  obtained  a  second 
lieutenancy  in  the  Seventh  Regiment.  It  was  his  little 
protest  against  the  unpreparedness  of  the  nation  as  it 
toppled  on  the  brink  of  the  crater  where  the  European  war 
boiled  and  smoked. 

One  midnight  after  a  drill  he  found  Kedzie  crying  bit- 
terly. He  took  her  in  his  arms,  and  his  tenderness  softened 
her  pride  so  that  she  wept  like  a  disconsolate  baby  and 
told  him  how  lonely  she  was.  Nobody  called;  nobody 
invited  her  out;  nobody  took  her  places.  She  had  no 
friends,  and  'her  husband  had  abandoned  her  for  his  old 
regiment. 

He  was  deeply  touched  by  her  woe  and  promised  that 
he  would  take  better  care  of  her.  But  his  military  en- 
gagements were  not  elastic.  He  dared  not  neglect  them. 
They  took  more  and  more  of  his  evenings  and  invaded  his 
days.  Besides,  he  was  poor  company  for  Kedzie's  mood. 
He  had  little  of  the  humming-bird  restlessness,  and  he 
could  not  keep  up  with  her  flights.  She  had  darted  her 
beak  into  a  flower,  and  its  nectar  was  finished  for  her  be- 
fore she  had  realized  that  it  was  a  flower. 

He  felt  that  what  she  needed  was  friends  of  her  own  sex. 

480 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

There  were  women  enough  who  would  accept  Kedzie's 
company  and  gad  with  her,  vie  with  her  quivering  speed. 
But  they  were  not  the  sort  he  wanted  her  to  fly  with. 
He  wanted  her  to  make  friends  with  the  Charity  Coe  type. 

The  next  day  Jim  grew  desperate  enough  to  call  on 
Charity.  She  was  out,  but  expected  in  at  any  moment. 
He  sat  down  to  wait  for  her.  The  room,  the  books,  the 
piano — all  spoke  of  her  lovingly  and  lovably.  He  went 
to  the  piano  and  found  there  the  song  she  had  played  for 
him  once  in  Newport — "Go,  Lovely  Rose!" 

He  thought  it  a  marvelous  coincidence  that  it  should 
be  there  on  the  rack.  Like  most  coincidences,  this  was 
not  hard  to  explain.  It  chanced  to  be  there  because 
Charity  played  it  often.  She  was  lonelier  than  Kedzie 
and  almost  as  helpless  to  amuse  herself.  She  read  vastly, 
but  the  stories  of  other  people's  unhappy  loves  were  a 
poor  anodyne  for  her  own.  She  thought  incessantly  of 
Jim  Dyckman.  Remembering  the  song  she  had  played 
for  him,  and  his  bitter  comment  on  the  verse,  "Tell  her 
that  wastes  her  time  and  me,"  she  hunted  it  out,  and  the 
plaintive  chimes  of  Carpenter's  music  made  a  knell  for  her 
own  hopes. 

She  had  played  it  this  very  afternoon  and  wrought  her- 
self to  such  sardonic  regret  that  she  forced  herself  into 
the  open  air.  She  walked  a  mile  or  two,  but  slunk  back 
home  again  to  be  rid  of  the  crowds. 

She  was  thinking  of  Dyckman  when  she  entered  her 
house.  She  let  herself  in  with  her  own  key,  and,  walking 
into  the  drawing-room,  surprised  him  at  the  piano,  reading 
the  tender  elegy  of  the  rose. 

"Jim!"  she  gasped. 

"Charity!"  he  groaned. 

Their  souls  seemed  to  rush  from  their  bodies  and  em- 
brace. But  their  bodies  stood  fast  before  the  abyss  that 
gaped  between  them. 

She  whipped  off  her  glove  before  she  gave  him  her  hand. 
That  meeting  of  the  flesh  was  so  bitter-sweet  that  their 
31  481 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

hands  unclasped  guiltily  by  a  kind  of  honest  instinct  of 
danger. 

"What  on  earth  brought  you  here?"  Charity  faltered. 

"Why— I—  Well,  you  see— it's  like  this."  He  groped 
for  words,  but,  having  no  genius  in  invention,  he  blurted 
the  truth  helplessly :  "  I  came  to  ask  you  if  you  wouldn't — 
You  see,  my  poor  wife  isn't  making  out  very  well  with 
people — she's  lonesome — and  blue — and — why  can't  you 
lend  a  hand  and  make  friends  with  her?" 

Charity  laughed  aloud.  "  Oh,  Jim,  Jim,  what  a  darling 
old  numskull  you  are!" 

"In  general,  yes;  but  why  just  now?" 

"Your  wife  will  never  make  friends  with  me." 

"Of  course  she  will.  She's  lonely  enough  to  take  up 
with  anybody." 

"Thanks!" 

"Well,  will  you  call?" 

"Have  you  told  her  you  were  going  to  ask  me  to?" 

"Not  yet." 

"Then  I'll  call,  on  one  condition." 

"What's  that,  Charity  Coe?" 

"That  you  don't  tell  her.  You'd  better  not,  or  she'll 
have  my  eyes  and  your  scalp." 

"But  you'll  call,  won't  you?" 

"Of  course.     Anything  you  say — always." 

"You're  the  damnedest  decentest  woman  in  the  world, 
Charity  Coe;  and  if— " 

He  paused.  It  is  just  as  well  not  to  go  iffing  about  such 
matters. 

Charity  stopped  short  in  her  laughter.  She  and  Jim 
stared  at  each  other  again  across  that  abyss.  It  was 
terribly  deep,  but  only  a  step  over. 

They  heard  the  door-bell  faintly,  and  a  sense  of  guilt 
confused  them  again.  Jim  rose  and  wished  himself  out 
of  it. 

"It's  only  Prissy  Atterbury,"  said  Charity. 

Prissy  came  in  tugging  at  the  ferocious  mustaches  that 

482 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

only  emphasized  his  lady-like  carriage.  He  paused  on  the 
door-sill  to  stare  and  gasp,  "  My  Gawd,  at  it  again!" 

They  did  not  know  what  he  meant,  and  he  would  not 
explain  that  he  had  seen  them  together  ages  ago  and  spread 
the  gossip  that  they  were  in  intrigue.  The  coincidence  of 
his  recurrence  on  their  scene  was  not  strange,  for  Charity 
had  been  using  him  as  a  kind  of  messenger-boy. 

Prissy  was  that  sort.  He  looked  the  gentleman  and 
was,  a  somewhat  too  gentle  gentleman,  but  very  useful 
to  ladies  who  needed  an  uncompromising  escort  and  were 
no  longer  young  enough  to  permit  of  chaperonage.  He 
was  considered  perfectly  harmless,  but  he  was  a  fiend  of 
gossip,  and  he  rejoiced  in  the  recrudescence  of  the  Jim  and 
Charity  affair. 

Jim  confirmed  Prissy's  eager  suspicions  by  taking  him- 
self off  with  a  maximum  of  embarrassment.  Charity 
went  to  the  door  with  him — to  kiss  him  good-by,  as 
Prissy  gloatingly  supposed,  but  actually  to  say: 

"I'll  call  on  your  wife  to-morrow." 

"You're  an  angel,"  said  Jim,  and  meant  it. 

He  thought  all  the  way  home  what  an  angel  she  was, 
and  Charity  was  thinking  at  the  same  time  what  a  fool 
she  had  been  to  let  Peter  Cheever  dazzle  her  to  the  fact 
that  Jim  Dyckman  was  the  one  man  in  the  world  that 
she  belonged  to.  She  needed  just  him  and  he  just  her. 


CHAPTER  XII 

QOMETIMES  Jim  Dyckman  was  foolish  enough  to 
O  wish  that  he  had  been  his  wife's  first  lover.  But  a 
man  has  to  get  up  pretty  early  to  be  that  to  any  woman. 
The  minxes  begin  to  flirt  with  the  milk-bottle,  then  with 
the  doctor,  and  then  to  cherish  a  precocious  passion  for 
the  first  rag  sailor-doll. 

Jim  had  come  as  near  as  any  man  may  to  being  a 
woman's  first  love  in  the  case  of  Charity,  and  what  good 
had  it  done  him?  He  was  the  first  boy  Charity  had  ever 
played  with.  Her  nurse  had  bragged  about  her  to  his 
nurse  when  Charity  was  just  beginning  to  take  notice  of 
other  than  alimentary  things.  By  that  time  Jim  was  a 
blase  roue  of  five  and  his  main  interest  in  Charity  was  a 
desire  to  poke  his  finger  into  the  soft  spot  in  her  head. 

The  nurses  restrained  him  in  time,  and  his  proud,  young, 
lithe  mother  of  then,  when  she  heard  of  it,  decided  that  he 
was  destined  to  be  a  great  explorer.  His  young  father 
sniffed  that  he  was  more  likely  to  be  a  gynecologist. 
They  had  a  grand  quarrel  over  their  son's  future.  He 
became  none  of  the  things  they  feared  or  hoped  that  he 
would  and  he  carried  out  none  of  his  own  early  ambitions. 

His  first  impressions  of  Charity  had  ranged  from  con- 
tempt, through  curiosity,  to  protectiveness  and  affection. 
She  got  his  heart  first  by  being  helpless.  He  began  by 
picking  up  the  things  she  let  fall  from  her  carriage  or 
threw  overboard  and  immediately  cried  for  again.  She 
had  been  human  enough  to  do  a  good  deal  of  that. 
When  things  cumbered  her  crib  or  her  perambulator  she 
brushed  them  into  space  and  then  repented  after  them. 

484 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Following  her  marriage  to  Peter  Cheever  she  did  just 
that  with  Jim  Dyckman.  His  love  cluttered  up  her  do- 
mestic serenity  and  she  chucked  it  overboard.  And  then 
she  wanted  it  again.  Then  her  husband  chucked  her 
overboard  and  she  felt  that  it  would  not  be  so  lonesome 
out  there  since  Jim  would  be  out  there,  too.  But  she 
found  that  he  had  picked  himself  up  and  toddled  away 
with  Kedzie.  And  now  he  could  not  pick  Charity  up 
any  more.  His  wife  wouldn't  let  him. 

Jim  did  not  know  that  he  wanted  to  pick  Charity  up 
again  till  he  called  on  her  to  ask  her  to  call  on  his  wife 
and  pick  Kedzie  up  out  of  her  loneliness.  It  was  a 
terrific  thought  to  the  simple-minded  Jim  when  it  came 
over  him  that  the  Charity  Coe  he  had  adored  and  given 
up  as  beyond  his  reach  on  her  high  pedestal  was  now 
lying  at  the  foot  of  it  with  no  worshiper  at  all. 

Jim  was  the  very  reverse  of  a  snob.  Kedzie  had  won 
his  devotion  by  seeming  to  need  it.  She  had  lost  it  by 
showing  that  she  cared  less  for  him  than  for  the  things 
she  thought  he  could  get  for  her.  And  now  Charity 
needed  his  love. 

There  were  two  potent  principles  in  Jim's  nature,  as  in 
many  another  man's  and  woman's;  one  was  an  instant 
eagerness  to  help  anybody  in  trouble;  another  was  an 
instant  resentment  of  any  coercion.  Jim  could  endure 
neither  bossing  nor  being  bossed;  restraint  of  any  sort 
irked  him.  There  may  have  been  Irish  blood  in  him,  but 
at  any  rate  the  saying  was  as  true  of  him  as  of  the  typical 
Irishman — "You  can  lead  him  to  hell  easier  than  you  can 
drive  him  an  inch." 

When  Jim  left  Charity's  house  his  heart  ached  to  think 
of  her  distressful  with  loneliness.  When  he  realized  that 
somehow  Kedzie  was  automatically  preventing  him  from 
helping  Charity  his  marital  bonds  began  to  chafe.  He 
began  to  understand  that  matrimony  was  hampering  his 
freedom.  He  had  something  to  resent  on  his  own  behalf. 

He  had  been  so  troubled  with  the  thought  of  his  short- 
485 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

comings  in  devotion  to  Kedzie  that  he  had  not  pondered 
how  much  he  had  surrendered.  He  had  repented  his  in- 
ability to  give  Kedzie  his  entire  and  fanatic  love.  He  saw 
that  he  had  at  least  given  his  precious  liberty  of  soul  into 
her  little  hands. 

Galled  as  he  was  at  this  comprehension,  he  began  to 
think  over  the  lessons  of  his  honeymoon  and  to  see  that 
Kedzie  had  not  given  him  entirety  of  devotion  any  more 
than  he  her.  Little  selfishnesses,  exactions,  tyrannies, 
petulances,  began  to  recur  to  him. 

He  was  in  the  dangerous  frame  of  mind  of  a  bridegroom 
thinking  things  over.  At  that  time  it  behooves  the  bride 
to  exert  her  fascinations  and  prove  her  devotion  as  never 
before. 

Kedzie,  knowing  nothing  of  Jim's  call  on  Charity  or  of 
his  new  mood,  chanced  to  be  in  a  most  unfortunate  humor. 
She  criticized  Jim;  she  declined  to  be  amused  or  enter- 
tained; rebuffed  his  advances,  ridiculed  his  pretensions  of 
love.  She  even  chose  to  denounce  his  mother  for  her 
heartlessness,  his  sister  for  her  neglect,  his  father  for  his 
snobbery.  That  is  always  bad  business.  It  puts  a  hus- 
band at  bay  with  his  back  against  the  foundation  walls  of 
loyalty.  They  quarreled  wonderfully  and  slept  dos-a-dos. 
They  did  not  speak  the  next  morning. 

The  next  afternoon  Jim  saw  to  his  dismay  that  Kedzie 
was  putting  on  her  hat  and  gloves  to  go  out  on  a  shopping- 
cruise.  If  she  went  she  would  miss  Charity's  call. 

He  knew  that  he  ought  not  to  tell  her  of  Charity's  visit 
in  advance.  In  fact,  Charity  had  pledged  him  to  a  benevo- 
lent conspiracy  in  the  matter.  He  put  up  a  flag  of  truce 
and  resumed  diplomatic  relations. 

With  the  diplomatic  cunning  of  a  hippopotamus  he  tried 
to  decoy  Kedzie  into  staying  at  home  awhile.  His 
ponderous  subtlety  aroused  Kedzie's  suspicions,  and  at 
length  he  confirmed  them  by  desperately  confessing : 

"Mrs.  Cheever  is  going  to  call." 

Kedzie's  first  thought  was  of  Peter  Cheever 's  new  wife, 

486 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

who  had  been  taken  up  by  a  certain  set  of  those  whom  one 
may  call  loose-principled  or  divinely  tolerant,  as  one's  own 
prejudices  direct.  Kedzie  could  not  yet  afford  to  be  so 
forgiving.  She  flared  up. 

"  Mrs.  Cheever!  That  Zada  thing  going  to  call  on  me? 
How  dare  she!" 

"Of  course  not." 

"Oh,  the  other  one,  then?" 

"Yes." 

"The  abandoned  one?" 

"That's  pretty  rough.  She's  been  very  kind  to  you 
and  she  wants  to  be  again." 

"Where  did  you  learn  so  much?" 

"We  were  talking  about  you." 

"Oh,  you  were,  were  you?  That's  nice!  And  where 
was  all  this?" 

He  indulged  in  a  concessive  lie  for  the  sake  or  the  peace. 
"  I  met  her  in  the  street  and  walked  along  with  her." 

"Fine !     And  how  did  my  name  come  to  come  up?" 

"  It  naturally  would.  I  was  saying  that  I  wished  she'd 
— er — I  wished  that  you  and  she  might  be  friends." 

"So  that  you  and  she  could  see  each  other  still  oftener, 
I  suppose." 

"  It's  rotten  of  you  to  say  that." 

"  And  it's  rottener  of  you  to  go  talking  to  another  woman 
about  your  wife." 

"But  it  was  in  the  friendliest  spirit,  and  she  took 
it  so." 

"I  see!  Her  first  name  is  Charity  and  I'm  to  be  one  of 
her  patients.  Well,  you  can  receive  her  yourself.  I  don't 
want  any  of  her  old  alms!  I  won't  be  here!" 

"Oh  yes,  you  will!" 

"Oh  no,  I  won't!" 

"You  can't  be  as  ill-mannered  as  that!" 

"You  talk  to  me  of  manners !  Why,  I've  seen  manners 
in  your  gang  that  would  disgrace  a  brakeman  and  a  lunch- 
counter  girl  on  one  of  dad's  railroads."  Her  father  already 

487 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

had  railroads!  So  many  people  had  them  in  the  crowd 
she  met  that  Kedzie  was  not  strong  enough  to  deny  her 
father  one  or  two. 

Kedzie  had  taken  the  most  violent  dislike  to  Charity 
for  a  dozen  reasons,  all  of  them  perfectly  human  and 
natural,  and  nasty  and  unjustifiable,  and  therefore  in- 
eradicable. The  first  one  was  that  odious  matter  of 
obligation.  Gratitude  has  been  wisely  diagnosticated  as 
a  lively  sense  of  benefits  to  come.  The  deadly  sense  of 
benefits  gone  by  is  known  as  ingratitude. 

No  one  knows  just  what  the  divinely  unpardonable  sin 
is,  but  the  humanly  or  at  least  womanly  unpardonable 
sin  is  to  have  known  one's  husband  well  before  the  wife 
met  him,  and  then  to  try  to  be  nice  to  the  wife.  To  have 
known  the  wife  in  her  humble  days  and  to  have  done  her 
a  favor  makes  the  sin  unmentionable  as  well  as  unpardon- 
able. 

Jim  Dyckman  had  involved  himself  in  Charity's  crime 
by  trying  to  get  Charity  to  help  his  wife  again.  It  was 
bad  enough  that  Charity  had  got  Kedzie  a  job  in  the  past 
and  had  sent  Jim  Dyckman  to  make  sure  that  she  got  it. 
But  for  Jim,  after  Kedzie  and  he  had  been  married  and 
all,  to  ask  Charity  to  rescue  Kedzie  from  her  social 
failure  was  monstrous. 

The  fact  that  Jim  had  felt  sorry  for  his  lonely  Kedzie 
marooned  on  an  iceberg  in  mid-society  was  humiliating 
enough;  but  for  Charity  to  dare  to  feel  sorry  for  Kedzie, 
too,  and  to  come  sailing  after  her — Kedzie  shuddered 
when  she  thought  of  it. 

She  fought  with  her  husband  until  it  was  too  late  for  her 
to  get  away.  Charity's  card  came  in  while  they  were  still 
wrangling.  Kedzie  announced  that  she  was  not  at  home. 
Jim  told  the  servant,  "Wait!"  and  gave  Kedzie  a  look 
that  she  rather  enjoyed.  It  was  what  they  call  a  cave- 
man look.  She  felt  that  he  already  had  his  hands  in  her 
hair  and  was  dragging  her  across  the  floor  bumpitty-bump. 
It  made  her  scalp  creep  deliciously.  She  was  rather 

488 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

tempted  to  goad  him  on  to  action.  It  would  have  a 
movie  thrill. 

But  the  look  faded  from  Jim's  eye  and  the  blaze  of 
wrath  dulled  to  a  gray  contempt.  She  was  afraid  that  he 
might  call  her  what  she  had  once  overheard  Pet  Bettany 
call  her — "A  common  little  mucker."  That  sort  of  con- 
tempt seared  like  a  splash  of  vitriol. 

Kedzie,  like  Zada,  was  a  self-made  lady  and  she  wanted 
to  conceal  the  authorship  from  the  great-grandmother- 
built  ladies  she  encountered. 

She  pouted  a  moment,  then  she  said  to  the  servant, 
"We'll  see  her."  She  turned  to  Jim.  "Come  along.  I'll 
go  and  pet  your  ok?  cat  and  get  her  off  my  chest." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

JIM  thudded  dismally  along  in  her  wake.  Charity 
was  in  the  drawing-room  wearing  her  politest  face. 
She  could  tell  from  Kedzie's  very  pose  that  she  was  as 
welcome  as  a  submarine. 

Kedzie  said,  "Awfully  decent  of  you  to  come,"  and  gave 
her  a  handful  of  cold,  limp  fingers. 

Charity  politely  pretended  that  she  had  called  unex- 
pectedly and  that  she  was  in  dire  need  of  Kedzie's  aid. 
She  made  herself  unwittingly  ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of 
Kedzie,  who  knew  and  despised  her  motive,  not  appreciat- 
ing at  all  the  consideration  Charity  was  trying  to  show. 

"I'm  sorry  to  bother  you,  Mrs.  Dyckman,"  Charity 
began,  "but  I've  got  to  throw  myself  on  your  mercy.  A 
few  of  us  are  getting  up  a  new  stunt  for  the  settlement- 
work  fund.  It  is  to  be  rather  elaborate  and  ought  to  make 
a  lot  of  money.  It  is  to  represent  a  day  in  the  life  of  a 
New  York  Bud.  You  can  have  your  choice  of  several 
roles,  and  I  hope  you  will  lend  us  a  hand." 

Kedzie  had  heard  of  this  project  and  she  had  gnawed 
her  bitter  heart  in  a  chagrin  of  yearning  to  take  part  in  it. 
She  had  not  been  invited,  and  she  had  blenched  every 
time  she  thought  of  it.  She  was  so  much  relieved  at  being 
asked  that  she  almost  forgave  Charity  for  her  benevolence. 
She  stammered:  "It's  awfully  decent  of  you  to  ask  me. 
I'll  do  my  bit  with  the  greatest  of  pleasure." 

She  rather  regretted  those  last  five  words.  They  were 
a  bit  Nimrimmy. 

Charity  sketched  the  program  for  her. 

"The  Bud  is  diseevered  in  bed.  A  street  piano  wakes 

400 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

her.  There  is  to  be  a  dance  to  a  hurdy-gurdy.  Then  the 
Bud  has  breakfast.  It  is  served  by  a  dancing  maid  and 
butler.  Tom  Duane  is  to  be  the  butler.  You  could  be — 
no,  you  wouldn't  fancy  the  maid,  I  imagine." 

Kedzie  did  not  fancy  the  maid. 

Charity  went  on:  "The  girl  dresses  and  goes  to  a 
rehearsal  of  the  Junior  League.  That's  to  be  a  ballet  of 
harlequins  and  columbines.  She  goes  from  there  to  her 
dressmaker's.  I  am  to  play  the  dressmaker.  I  have  my 
mannequins,  and  you  might  want  to  play  one  of  those 
and  wear  the  latest  thing — or  you  could  be  one  of  the 
customers.  You  can  think  it  over. 

"Then  the  girl  is  seen  reading  a  magazine  and  there  is 
a  dance  of  cover  girls.  If  you  have  any  favorite  illus- 
trator you  could  be  one  of  his  types. 

"Next  the  Bud  goes  to  an  art  exhibition.  This  year 
Zuloaga  is  the  craze,  and  several  of  his  canvases  will  come 
to  life.  Do  you  care  for  Zuloaga?" 

"Immensely,  but — "  Kedzie  said,  wondering  just  what 
Zuloaga  did  to  his  canvases.  She  had  seen  a  cubist 
exhibition  that  gave  her  a  headache,  and  she  thought 
it  might  have  something  to  do  with  Zulus. 

Charity  ran  on:  "After  dinner  the  Bud  goes  to  the 
theater  and  sees  a  pantomime  and  a  series  of  ballets,  dolls 
of  the  nations — Chinese,  Polish,  also  nursery  characters. 
You  could  select  something  in  one  of  those  dances, 
perhaps. 

"And  last  of  all  there  is  a  chimney-sweeps'  dance  as 
the  worn-out  Bud  crawls  into  bed.  If  none  of  these  suit 
you  we'd  be  glad  to  have  any  suggestion  that  occurs  to 
you.  Of  course,  a  girl  of  to-day  does  a  thousand  more 
things  than  I've  mentioned.  But  the  main  thing  is, 
we  want  you  to  help  us  out. 

"You  are — if  you'll  forgive  me  for  slapping  you  in  the 
face  with  a  bouquet — you  are  exquisitely  beautiful  and 
I  know  that  you  dance  exquisitely." 

"How  do  you  know  that?"  Kedzie  asked,  rashly. 

491 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"I  saw  you  once  as  a — "  Charity  paused,  seeing  the 
red  run  across  Kedzie's  face.  She  had  stumbled  into 
Kedzie's  past  again,  and  Kedzie's  resentment  braced  her 
hurt  pride. 

Charity  tried  to  mend  matters  by  a  little  advice:  "You 
mustn't  blush,  my  dear  Mrs.  Dyckman.  If  I  were  in  your 
place  I'd  go  around  bragging  about  it.  To  have  been 
a  Greek  dancer,  what  a  beautiful  past!" 

"Thanks!"  said  Kedzie,  curtly,  with  basilisk  eyes.  "I 
think  I'd  rather  not  dance  any  more.  I'm  an  old  married 
woman  now.  If  you  don't  mind,  I'll  be  one  of  the  cus- 
tomers at  your  shop.  I'll  come  in  in  the  rippingest  gown 
Jim  can  buy.  I'll  feel  more  comfortable,  too,  under  your 
protection,  Mrs.  Cheever." 

Jim  laughed  and  Kedzie  grinned.  But  she  was  canny. 
She  was  thinking  that  she  would  be  safest  among  that 
pack  of  wolves  if  she  relied  on  her  money  to  buy  something 
dazzling  rather  than  on  the  beauty  that  Charity  alleged. 
She  did  not  want  to  dance  before  those  people  again. 
She  would  never  forget  how  her  foot  had  slipped  at 
Newport. 

Thirdly,  she  felt  that  she  would  be  sheltered  a  little 
from  persecution  beneath  the  wing  of  Charity.  It  rather 
pleased  her  to  treat  Charity  as  a  motherly  sort  of  person. 
It  is  the  most  deliciously  malicious  compliment  a  woman 
can  pay  another. 

Charity  did  not  fail  to  receive  the  stab.  But  it  amused 
her  so  far  as  she  was  concerned.  She  felt  that  Kedzie 
was  like  one  of  those  incorrigible  gamines  who  throw 
things  at  kindly  visitors  to  the  slums.  She  felt  sorry  for 
Jim,  and  wondered  again  by  what  strange  devices  he  had 
been  led  to  marry  so  incompatible  a  girl  as  Kedzie. 

Jim  wondered,  too.  He  sat  and  watched  the  two 
women,  wondering  as  men  do  when  they  see  women  pain- 
fully courteous  to  each  other;  wondering  as  women  must 
when  they  see  men  polite  to  their  enemies. 

Charity  and  Kedzie  prattled  on  in  a  kind  of  two-story 

492 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

conversation,  and  Jim  studied  them  with  shameless  ob- 
jectivity. He  hardly  heard  what  they  said.  He  watched 
the  pantomime  of  their  so  different  souls  and  bodies. 
Charity,  lean  and  smart  and  aristocratic,  beautiful  in  a 
peculiar  mixture  of  sophistication  and  tenderness ;  Kedzie, 
small  and  nymph-like  and  plebeian,  beautiful  in  a  mixture 
of  innocence  and  hardness  of  heart. 

Charity's  body  was  like  the  work  of  a  dashing  painter — 
long  lines  drawn  with  brave  force  and  direction.  Kedzie's 
body  was  a  thing  of  dainty  curves  and  timidities.  Charity 
was  fashionable  and  wise,  but  her  wisdom  had  lifted  her 
above  pettiness.  Kedzie  was  of  the  village,  for  all  her 
Parisian  garb,  and  she  had  cunning,  which  is  the  lowest 
form  of  wisdom. 

When  at  length  Charity  left,  Jim  and  Kedzie  sat  brood- 
ing. Kedzie  wanted  to  say  something  nice  about  Charity 
and  was  afraid  to.  The  poor  child  always  distrusted  her 
generous  impulses.  She  thought  it  cleverer  to  withhold 
trust  from  everybody,  lest  she  misplace  it  in  somebody. 
At  length  an  imp  of  perversity  taught  her  how  to  get  rid 
of  the  credit  she  owed  to  Charity.  She  spoke  after  a  long 
silence. 

"Mrs.  Cheever  must  be  horribly  fond  of  you." 

"Why  do  you  say  that?"  said  Jim,  startled. 

"Because  she's  so  nice  to  me." 

Jim  groaned  with  disgust.  Kedzie  giggled,  accepting 
the  groan  as  confession  of  a  palpable  hit.  She  sat  musing 
on  various  costumes  she  might  wear.  She  had  a  woman's 
memory  for  things  she  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  in  a  shop- 
window  or  in  a  fashion  magazine;  she  had  a  woman's 
imagination  for  dressing  herself  up  mentally. 

As  a  trained  mathematician  can  do  amazing  sums  in  his 
head,  so  Kedzie  could  juggle  modes  and  combinations, 
colors  and  stuffs,  and  wrap  them  about  herself.  While 
Kedzie  composed  her  new  gown,  her  husband  studied 
her,  still  wondering  at  her  and  his  inability  to  get  past  the 
barriers  of  her  flesh  to  her  soul.  Charity's  flesh  seemed 

493 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

but  the  expression  of  herself.  It  was  cordial  and  benevo- 
lent, warm  and  expressive  in  his  eyes.  Her  hands  were 
for  handclasp,  her  lips  for  good  words,  her  eyes  for  honest 
language.  He  had  not  embraced  her  except  in  dances 
years  before,  and  in  that  one  quickly  broken  embrace  at 
Newport.  He  had  not  kissed  her  since  they  had  been 
boy  and  girl  lovers,  but  the  savor  of  her  lips  was  still  sweet 
in  his  memory.  He  felt  that  he  knew  her  soul  utterly. 

He  had  possessed  all  the  advantages  of  Kedzie  without 
seeming  to  get  acquainted  with  the  ultimate  interior 
Kedzie  at  all.  She  was  to  him  well-known  flesh  inhabited 
by  a  total  stranger,  who  fled  from  him  mysteriously. 
When  she  embraced  him  she  held  him  aloof.  When  she 
kissed  him  her  lips  pressed  him  back.  He  could  not  out- 
grow the  feeling  that  their  life  together  was  rather  a 
reckless  flirtation  than  a  communion  of  merged  souls. 

He  stared  at  her  now  and  saw  dark  eyebrows  and  eye- 
lashes etched  on  a  white  skin,  starred  with  irises  of  strange 
hue,  a  nose  deftly  shaped,  a  mouth  as  pretty  and  as  im- 
personal as  a  flower,  a  throat  of  some  ineffably  exquisite 
petal  material.  She  sat  with  one  knee  lifted  a  little  and 
clasped  in  her  hands,  and  there  was  something  miraculous 
about  the  felicity  of  the  lines,  the  arms  penciled  downward 
from  the  shoulders  and  meeting  in  the  delicately  con- 
toured buckle  of  her  ten  fingers,  the  thigh  springing  in  a 
suave  arc  from  the  confluent  planes  of  her  torse,  the 
straight  shin  to  the  curve  of  instep  and  toe  and  heel.  Her 
hair  was  an  altogether  incredible  extravagance  of  manu- 
facture. 

George  Meredith  has  described  a  woman's  hair  once  for 
all,  and  if  Jim  had  ever  read  anything  so  important  as 
The  Egoist  he  would  have  said  that  Kedzie's  poll  was 
illustrated  in  that  wonderfully  coiffed  hair-like  sentence 
picturing  Clara  Middleton  and  "the  softly  dusky  nape  of 
her  neck,  where  this  way  and  that  the  little  lighter- 
colored  irreclaimable  curls  running  truant  from  the  comb 
and  the  knot — curls,  half-curls,  root-curls,  vine-ringlets, 

494 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

wedding-rings,  fledgling  feathers,  tufts  of  down,  blown 
wisps — waved  or  fell,  waved  over  or  up  to  involutedly,  or 
strayed,  loose  and  downward,  in  the  form  of  small  silken 
paws,  hardly  any  of  them  much  thicker  than  a  crayon 
shading,  cunninger  than  long,  round  locks  of  gold  to  trick 
the  heart." 

Kedzie's  hair  was  as  fascinating  as  tnat,  and  she  had 
many  graces  and  charms.  For  a  while  they  had  proved 
fascinating,  but  a  man  does  not  want  to  have  a  cartoon, 
however  complexly  beautiful,  for  a  wife.  Jim  wanted  a 
congenial  companion — that  is  to  say,  he  wanted  Charity 
Coe. 

But  he  could  not  have  her.  If  he  had  been  one  of  the 
patriarchs  or  a  virtuous  man  of  Mohammedan  stock  he 
could  have  tried,  by  marrying  a  female  quartet,  to  make 
up  one  good,  all-round  wife.  But  he  was  doomed  to  a 
single  try,  and  he  had  picked  the  wrong  one. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

WHAT  is  a  man  to  do  who  realizes  that  he  has 
married  the  wrong  woman? 

The  agonies  of  the  woman  who  has  been  married  to  the 
wrong  man  have  been  celebrated  innumerably  and  vats 
of  tears  spilled  over  them.  She  used  to  be  consigned  to  a 
husband  by  parental  choice  and  compulsion.  Those  days 
are  part  of  the  good  old  times. 

For  a  man  there  never  has  been  any  sympathy,  since 
he  has  not  usually  been  the  victim  of  parental  despotism 
in  the  matter  of  selecting  a  spouse,  or,  when  he  has  been, 
he  has  had  certain  privileges  of  excursion.  The  excursion 
is  still  a  popular  form  of  mitigating  the  severities  of  an 
unsuccessful  marriage.  Some  commit  murder,  some  com- 
mit suicide,  some  commit  other  things.  Marriage  is  the 
one  field  in  which  instinct  is  least  trustworthy  and  it  is 
the  one  field  in  which  it  is  accounted  immoral  to  repent 
errors  of  judgments  or  to  correct  them. 

The  law  has  found  it  well  to  concede  a  good  deal  to  the 
criminals.  After  centuries  of  vain  cruelty  it  was  found 
that  certain  people  simply  could  not  be  made  good  by 
any  rigor  of  confinement  or  any  heaping  up  of  punish- 
ment. So  the  law  has  come  down  to  the  criminal  with 
results  no  worse  at  the  worst  than  before,  and  sublimely 
better  at  the  best  than  before.  The  civil  law  is  doing  the* 
same  slowly  for  the  mal-married. 

But  Jim  Dyckman  was  not  even  dreaming  of  seeking  a 
rescue  from  his  mistake  by  way  of  a  divorce. 

Charity  had  entered  the  divorce  court  and  she  would 
always  bear  the  reproach  of  some  of  her  most  valued. 

496 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

friends.  She  could  not  imaginably  encourage  Jim  Dyck- 
man  to  free  himself  by  the  same  channel,  and  if  he  did, 
how  could  Charity  marry  him?  The  marriage  of  two 
divorced  persons  would  provoke  a  tempest  of  horror  from 
part  of  the  world,  and  gales  of  ridicule  from  the  rest. 
Besides,  there  was  no  sign  that  Kedzie  would  ever  give 
Jim  cause  for  divorce,  or  that  he  would  make  use  of  it 
if  she  gave  it  him. 

Charity  could  not  help  pondering  the  situation,  for  she 
saw  that  Jim  was  hopelessly  mismated.  Jim  could  not 
help  pondering  the  situation,  for  he  saw  the  same  thing. 
But  he  made  no  plans  for  release.  Kedzie  had  given  no 
hint  of  an  inclination  to  misconduct.  She  was  certainly 
not  going  to  follow  Gilfoyle  into  the  beyond.  Jim  was 
left  helpless  with  an  unanswerable  riddle  on  his  mind. 

He  could  only  curse  himself  for  being  fool  enough  to  get 
married,  and  join  the  vast  club  of  the  Repenters  at 
Leisure.  He  felt  sorrier  for  Kedzie  than  ever,  but  he 
also  felt  sorry  for  himself. 

The  better  he  came  to  know  his  wife  the  more  he  came 
to  know  how  alien  she  was  to  him  in  how  many  ways. 
The  things  she  wanted  to  be  or  seem  were  utterly  foreign 
to  his  own  ideals,  and  if  people's  ambitions  war  what  hope 
have  they  of  sympathy? 

Jim  could  not  help  noticing  how  Kedzie  was  progressing 
in  her  snobology.  She  had  had  many  languages  to  learn 
in  her  brief  day.  She  had  had  to  change  from  Missouri 
to  flat  New  York,  then  upward  through  various  strata  of 
diction.  She  had  learned  to  speak  with  a  certain  ele- 
gance as  a  movie  princess.  But  she  had  learned  that 
people  of  social  position  do  not  talk  on  stilts  outside  of 
fiction.  She  had  since  been  trying  to  acquire  the  rough 
slang  of  her  set.  It  was  not  easy  to  be  glib  in  it.  She  had 
attained  only  a  careful  carelessness  as  yet.  But  she  was 
learning!  As  soon  as  she  had  attained  a  careless  care- 
lessness she  would  be  qualified. 

But  there  was  another  difficulty.  She  had  not  yet  been 

497 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

able  to  make  up  her  mind  as  to  what  character  she  should 
play  in  her  new  world.  That  had  to  be  settled  before  she 
could  make  her  final  choice  of  dialect,  for  dialect  is 
character,  and  she  had  found,  to  her  surprise,  that  the 
upper  world  contained  as  great  a  variety  of  characters 
as  any  other  level. 

There  were  tomboys  and  hoydens  and  solemn  students; 
hard-working  sculptresses  and  dreamy  poetesses;  girls 
who  wanted  to  be  boys,  and  girls  who  wanted  to  be  nuns ; 
girls  who  were  frantic  to  vote,  and  girls  who  loathed  the 
thought  of  independence;  girls  who  ached  to  shock  people, 
and  girls  of  the  prunes-and-prismatic  type,  patricians  and 
precisians,  anarchists  and  Bohemians. 

She  encountered  girls  who  talked  appallingly  about 
breeding  dogs  and  babies,  about  Freudian  erotics,  and 
new  schools  of  art,  Futurism,  Vorticism.  Their  main  in- 
terest was  Ismism.  There  were  others  whose  intellect- 
uality ran  to  new  card-mathematics  in  pirate  bridge, 
gambling  algebra. 

Kedzie  was  in  a  chaos  of  sincere  convictions  and  even 
more  sincere  affectations.  She  could  not  select  an  atti- 
tude for  herself.  She  could  not  recapture  her  own  soul  or 
decide  what  she  wanted  to  be. 

Her  life  was  busy.  She  had  to  learn  French  and 
numberless  intricacies  of  fashionable  ethics.  She  had 
already  learned  to  ride  a  horse  for  her  moving-picture 
work,  but  Jim  warned  her  that  she  must  learn  to  jump 
so  that  she  could  follow  the  hounds  with  him.  She 
watched  pupils  in  hurdling  and  dreaded  to  add  that  to  her 
accomplishments.  It  made  her  seasick  to  witness  the 
race  to  the  barrier,  the  gathering  of  the  horse,  the  launch 
into  space,  the  clatter  of  the  top  bar  as  it  came  off  some- 
times, the  grunting  thud  of  the  big  brute  as  he  returned  to 
earth  and  galloped  away,  not  always  with  the  rider  still 
aboard.  She  imagined  herself  skirled  along  the  tan- 
bark  and  was  afraid. 

She  had  to  summon  all  the  courage  of  her  movie  days 

498 


\VE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

before  she  could  intrust  herself  to  a  riding-master.  Soon 
she  grew  to  like  the  excitement;  she  learned  to  charge  a 
fence,  hand  the  horse  his  head  at  the  right  moment, 
and  take  him  up  at  the  exact  second.  And  by  and 
by  she  was  laughing  at  other  beginners  and  talking 
horsy  talk  with  such  assurance  that  she  rather  gave 
the  impression  of  tracing  straight  back  to  the  Centaur 
family. 

Likewise  now  she  watched  other  new-comers  and  rank 
outsiders  break  into  the  sacred  inclosure.  She  mocked 
them  and  derided  them.  She  regretted  aloud  the  un- 
fortunate marriages  of  well-born  fellows  with  actresses 
and  commoners  from  beyond  the  pale.  Among  the  first 
French  words  she  learned  to  use  was  mesalliance. 

She  began  to  wonder  if  she  had  not  made  one  herself. 
She  found  inside  the  paddock  so  many  men  more  brilliant 
than  her  husband.  There  were  as  many  types  of  man  as 
of  woman — the  earnest,  the  ascetic,  the  socialistic,  the 
pious  youth,  wastrels,  rakes,  fops.  There  were  richer 
men  than  Jim  and  men  of  still  older  family,  men  of  even 
greater  wealth. 

She  had  been  married  only  a  few  weeks  and  she  was 
already  speculating  in  comparisons!  It  was  a  more 
or  less  inescapable  result  of  a  marriage  for  ambition, 
since  each  ambition  achieved  opens  a  horizon  of  further 
ambitions. 

She  had  a  brief  spell  of  delight  in  the  rehearsals  of  the 
"Day  of  the  Bud."  She  met  new  people  informally  and 
they  were  all  so  shy  and  self-conscious  that  they  were  not 
inclined  to  resent  Kedzie's  intrusion.  Kedzie  would  once 
have  ridiculed  them  as  "  amachoors  " ;  now  she  wished  that 
she,  too,  were  only  an  "amaturr"  instead  of  a  reformed 
professional. 

If  some  of  the  ladies  snubbed  her  she  found  others  that 
cultivated  her;  a  few  of  the  humbler  women  even  toadied 
to  her  position;  a  few  of  the  men  snuggled  up  to  her 
picturesque  beauty.  She  snubbed  them  with  vigor.  She 

499 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

hated  them  and  felt  smirched  by  their  challenges.     That 
was  splendid  of  her. 

She  was  beginning  to  find  herself  and  her  party,  but 
outside  the  circle  of  Jim's  immediate  entourage.  And 
Jim  was  beginning  to  find  himself  a  new  ambition  and  a 
new  circle  of  friends. 


CHAPTER  XV 

JIM  was  becoming  quite  the  military  man.  His  new 
passion  took  him  away  from  womankind,  saved  him 
from  temptation,  and  freed  his  thoughts  from  the  obses- 
sion of  either  Kedzie  or  Charity.  The  whole  nation  was 
turning  again  toward  soldiering,  drifting  slowly  and  re- 
sistingly,  but  helplessly,  into  the  very  things  it  had  long 
denounced  as  Prussianism  and  conscription.  A  universal 
mobilization  was  brewing  that  should  one  day  compel  all 
men  and  all  women,  even  little  boys  and  girls  and  the  very 
old,  to  become  part  of  a  giant  machinery  for  warfare. 

England,  too,  had  railed  at  conscription,  and  when  the 
war  smote  her  had  seen  her  little  army  of  a  quarter  of  a 
million  almost  annihilated  under  the  first  avalanche  of  the 
German  descent  toward  Paris.  England  had  gathered 
volunteers  and  trained  them  behind  the  bulwark  of  her 
navy  and  the  red  wall  of  the  bleeding  French  nation. 
And  England  had  given  up  volunteering  and  gone  into  the 
business  of  making  everybody,  without  distinction  of  sex, 
age,  or  degree,  contribute  life  and  liberty  and  luxury  to 
the  common  cause. 

Behind  the  bulwark  of  the  British  fleet  and  the  Allied 
armies  the  United  States  had  debated,  not  for  weeks  or 
months,  but  for  years  with  academic  sloth  the  enlargement 
of  its  tiny  army.  It  had  accomplished  only  the  debate, 
a  ludicrous  haggle  between  those  who  turned  their  backs 
on  the  world  war  and  said  that  war  was  impossible  and 
those  who  declared  that  it  was  inevitable. 

Some  Americans  asserted  that  it  was  none  of  America's 
business  what  happened  in  Europe  or  how  many  American 

501 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

citizens  died  on  the  free  seas,  and  that  the  one  way  to 
bring  war  into  our  country  was  to  be  prepared  for  it. 
Other  Americans  grew  angry  enough  to  forswear  their 
allegiance  to  a  nation  of  poltroons  and  dotards;  they 
went  to  France  or  Canada  to  fight  or  fly  for  the  Allies. 
Many  of  them  died.  Yet  others  tried  to  equip  themselves 
at  home  somewhat  to  meet  the  red  flood  when  it  should 
break  the  dam  and  sweep  across  the  American  borders. 

Of  these  last  was  Jim  Dyckman.  Since  he  had  joined 
the  National  Guard  he  gave  it  more  and  more  of  his  en- 
thusiasm. Unhappily  married  men  have  always  fled  to 
the  barracks  or  the  deck  as  ill-mated  women  fled  to 
convents. 

Night  after  night  Jim  spent  at  the  armory,  drilling  with 
his  company,  conferring  at  headquarters,  laboring  for 
recruits,  toiling  over  the  paper  work. 

Kedzie  pouted  awhile  at  his  patriotism,  ridiculed  it 
and  hated  it,  and  then  accepted  it  as  a  matter  of  course. 
She  could  either  stay  at  home  and  read  herself  to  sleep  or 
join  the  crowds.  The  rehearsals  of  the  "  Day  of  the  Bud  " 
gave  her  some  business,  and  she  picked  up  a  few  new 
friends.  She  made  her  appearance  with  the  company  in  a 
three-nights'  performance  that  netted  several  thousands  of 
dollars.  Jim  saw  her  once.  She  was  gorgeous,  a  little  too 
gorgeous.  She  did  not  belong.  She  felt  it  herself,  and 
overworked  her  carelessness.  Her  non-success  hurt  her 
bitterly.  People  did  not  say  of  her,  as  in  the  movies, 
"How  sweet!"  but,  "Rather  common!" 

And  now  Kedzie  was  bewildered  and  lost.  She  found 
no  comfort  in  Jim.  She  had  to  seek  companionship 
somewhere.  At  first  she  made  her  engagements  only  on 
Jim's  drill  nights.  Soon  she  made  them  on  nights  when 
he  was  free.  - 

When  they  met,  each  found  the  other's  experiences  of 
no  importance.  Her  indifference  to  the  portentous 
meanings  and  campaigns  of  the  European  war  dazed  him. 
He  wondered  how  any  human  being  could  live  in  such 

502 


WE   CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

epochal  weeks  and  take  no  thought  of  events.  She  was 
not  interested  even  in  the  accounts  of  the  marvelous  suf- 
ferings of  women  and  their  marvelous  achievements  in  the 
munition-plants,  the  fields,  and  hospitals.  He  watched 
Kedzie  skip  the  head-lines  detailing  some  sublime  feat  of 
endeavor  like  the  defense  of  Verdun  and  turn  to  the  page 
where  her  name  was  included  or  not  among  the  guests  at  a 
dinner  well  advertised  by  the  hostess.  She  would  skip 
the  pages  of  photographs  showing  forth  the  daily  epics 
of  Europe  and  ponder  the  illustrations  of  some  new  smock. 
He  shook  his  head  over  her  as  if  she  were  a  doll  come  to 
life  and  nothing  stirring  within  but  a  music-box  and  a 
sawdust  heart.  He  was  disappointed  in  her — abysmally. 
He  devoted  himself  to  his  military  work  as  if  he  were  a 
bachelor. 

For  the  third  year  now  the  Americans  were  still  dis- 
cussing just  what  sort  of  army  it  should  have,  and  mean- 
while getting  none  at  all. 

The  opponents  of  preparedness  grew  so  ferocious  in  their 
attacks  on  the  pleaders  for  troops  that  the  word  "  pacifist " 
became  ironical.  They  seemed  to  think  it  a  crime  to 
assault  anybody  but  a  fellow-countryman. 

All  the  while  the  various  factions  of  unhappy  Mexico 
fought  together  and  threatened  the  peace  of  the  United 
States.  The  Government  that  had  helped  drag  President 
Huerta  from  his  chair  with  the  help  of  Villa  and  Carranza 
found  itself  in  turn  at  odds  with  both  its  allies  and  its 
allies  at  war  with  each  other. 

There  were  scenes  of  rapine  and  flights  of  refugees  that 
brought  a  little  of  Belgium  to  our  frontier.  And  then 
the  sombreros  came  over  the  border  at  Columbus,  New 
Mexico,  one  night  with  massacre  and  escape,  and  the  tiny 
American  army  under  Pershing  went  over  the  border  to 
get  its  erstwhile  ally,  Villa,  dead  or  alive,  and  got  him 
neither  way. 

And  still  Congress  pondered  the  question  of  the  army 
ae  if  it  were  something  as  remote  and  patient  as  a  problem 

503 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

in  sidereal  arithmetic.  Some  asked  for  volunteers  and 
some  for  universal  service  and  some  for  neither.  The 
National  Guard  was  a  bone  of  contention,  and  when  the 
hour  struck  it  was  the  only  bone  there  was. 

In  June  Jim  Dyckman  went  to  the  officers'  school  of 
application  at  Peekskill  for  a  week  to  get  a  smattering  of 
tuition  under  Regular  Army  instructors.  He  slept  on  a 
cot  in  a  tent  and  studied  map-making  and  military  book- 
keeping and  mimic  warfare,  and  was  tremendously  happy. 

Kedzie  made  a  bad  week  of  it.  She  missed  him  sadly. 
There  was  no  one  to  quarrel  with  or  make  up  with.  When 
he  came  back  late  Saturday  night  she  was  so  glad  to  see 
him  that  she  cried  blissfully  upon  his  proud  bosom. 

They  had  a  little  imitation  honeymoon  and  went 
a-motoring  on  Sunday  out  into  the  lands  where  June  was 
embroidering  the  grass  with  flowers  and  shaking  the  petals 
off  the  branches  where  young  fruit  was  fashioning. 

They  discussed  their  summer  schemes  and  she  dreaded 
the  knowledge  that  in  July  he  must  go  to  the  manceuvers 
for  three  weeks.  They  agreed  to  get  aboard  his  yacht  for 
a  little  cruise  before  that  dreadful  interlude. 

And  then,  early  the  next  morning,  the  morning  of  the 
igth  of  June,  the  knuckles  of  his  valet  on  the  door  woke 
Jim  from  his  slumber  and  a  voice  through  the  panels 
murmured: 

"Very  sorry,  sir,  but  you  are  wanted  on  the  telephone, 
sir — it's  your  regiment." 

That  was  the  way  the  Paul  Reveres  of  1916  summoned 
the  troops  to  arms. 

Mr.  Minute-Man  Dyckman  sat  on  the  edge  of  his  bed 
in  his  silk  pajamas  with  the  telephone-receiver  at  his  ear, 
and  yawned:  "H'lo.  .  .  .  Who  is  it?  ...  What  is  it? 
.  .  .  Oh,  it's  you,  sergeant.  .  .  .  Yes?  .  .  .  No!  .  .  . 
For  God's  sake!  ...  I'll  get  out  right  away." 

"What's  the  matter?  Is  the  house  on  fire?"  Kedzie 
gasped  from  her  pillow,  half-awake  and  only  half-afraid, 
so  prettily  befuddled  she  was  with  sleep.  She  would  have 

504 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

made  a  picture  if  Jim  had  had  eyes  to  see  her  as  she 
struggled  to  one  elbow  and  thrust  with  her  other  hand  her 
curls  back  into  her  nightcap,  all  askew.  Her  gown  was 
sliding  over  one  shoulder  down  to  her  elbow  and  up  to 
one  out-thrust  knee. 

Jim  put  away  the  telephone  and  pondered  a  moment. 

Kedzie  caught  at  his  arm.  "What's  the  matter?  Why 
don't  you  tell  me!" 

He  spoke  with  a  boyish  pride  of  war  and  a  husbandly 
solemnity:  "The  President  has  called  out  the  National 
Guard.  We're  to  mobilize  to-day  and  get  to  the  border 
as  soon  as  we  can.  They  hope  that  our  regiment  will  be 
the  first  to  move." 


CHAPTER  XVI 

"T/^EDZIE'S  answer  was  a  fierce  seizure  of  him  in  her 
IS*,  arms.  She  was  palsied  with  fright  for  him.  She 
had  seen  more  pictures  of  dead  soldiers  than  he  knew,  and 
now  she  saw  her  man  shattered  and  tortured  with  wounds 
and  thirst.  She  felt  in  one  swift  shock  what  the  wives  of 
Europe  had  felt  by  the  million.  She  clung  to  Jim  and 
sobbed: 

"You  sha'n't  go!  I  won't  let  them  take  you!  You 
belong  to  me!" 

He  gathered  her  awkwardly  into  his  arms  and  they  were 
more  nearly  married  then  than  they  had  ever  been  or 
should  ever  be  again. 

The  pity  of  it!  that  only  their  separation  could  bring 
them  together!  Fate  is  the  original  Irish-bullster. 

Jim  tried  hurriedly  to  console  Kedzie.  He  found  her 
hard  to  make  brave.  The  early-morningness  of  the  shock, 
the  panic  of  scattered  sleep,  gave  her  added  terror.  He 
had  to  be  cruel  at  last.  Without  intention  of  humor  he 
said: 

"Really,  honey,  you  know  you  just  can't  keep  the 
President  waiting." 

He  tore  loose  the  tendrils  of  her  fingers  and  ran  to  his 
own  dressing-room.  She  wept  awhile,  then  rose  to  help 
accoutre  him.  He  had  his  uniform  at  home  still. 

In  the  Grecian  simplicity  of  her  nightgown,  the  very 
cream  of  silk,  she  might  have  been  Andromache  harness- 
ing Hector.  Only  there  was  no  baby  for  him  to  leave 
with  her,  no  baby  to  shrink  in  fright  from  the  horse- 
hair crest  of  the  helmet  that  he  did  not  wear. 

506 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

When  he  was  all  dressed  in  his  olive-drab  she  still 
could  not  let  him  go.  She  held  him  with  her  soft  arms 
and  twiddled  the  gun-metal  buttons  of  his  blouse.  And 
when  at  length  she  must  make  an  end  of  farewells  she 
hugged  him  with  all  her  might  and  was  glad  that  the  hard 
buttons  hurt  the  delicate  breast  that  he  felt  against  him 
smotheringly  sweet  and  perilously  yielding. 

Not  knowing  how  tame  the  event  of  all  this  war-like 
circumstance  was  to  prove,  he  suffered  to  the  deeps  of  his 
being  the  keen  ache  of  separation  that  has  wrung  so  many 
hearts  in  this  eternally  battling  world.  War,  the  sunderer, 
had  reached  them  with  his  great  divorce. 

When  he  was  free  of  her  at  last  she  followed  him  and 
caught  new  kisses.  She  ran  shamelessly  barefoot  to  the 
door  to  have  the  last  of  his  lips,  called  good-by  to  him 
when  the  elevator  carried  him  into  the  pit,  and  flung 
kisses  downward  after  him.  Then  she  stumbled  back  to 
her  room  and  cried  aloud.  Liliane,  her  maid,  came  to 
help  her  and  Liliane  wept  with  her,  knowing  all  too  well 
what  war  could  do  to  love. 

Later  Kedzie  went  to  the  armory  and  slipped  through 
the  massed  crowds  to  see  Jim  again.  He  was  gloriously 
busy  and  it  stirred  her  martially  to  see  his  men  come 
up,  click  heels,  salute,  report,  ask  questions,  salute,  and 
retreat  again. 

A  few  excited  days  of  recruiting  and  equipping  and 
then  the  ceremony  of  the  muster-in.  Jim  spent  his 
nights  at  home,  but  his  terrified  mother  and  his  none  too 
stoical  father  were  there  to  rival  Kedzie  in  devotion. 

Importance  was  in  the  air.  There  was  a  stir  of  history 
in  the  public  mood.  The  flags  rippled  with  a  new  twinkle 
of  stars  and  a  fiercer  writhing  of  stripes.  The  red  had  the 
omen  of  blood. 

On  the  third  day  there  was  a  ruffle  of  drums  and  a 
crying  of  brass  on  Fifth  Avenue.  People  recalled  the 
great  days  when  the  boys  in  blue  had  paraded  away  to 
the  wars.  Only  this  regiment  marched  up,  not  down,  the 

5°7 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Avenue.  It  was  the  Sixty-ninth,  its  flagstaff  solid  with 
the  silver  rings  of  battle.  It  was  moving  north  to  the 
mobilization-camp. 

On  the  ninth  day  the  Seventh  went  down  the  Avenue, 
twelve  hundred  strong,  to  entrain  for  Texas.  The  bullets 
of  the  foe  were  not  the  only  dangers.  It  was  midsummer 
and  these  men  were  bound  for  the  tropics  and  the  cursed 
fields  of  sand  where  the  tarantula,  the  rattlesnake,  and 
the  scorpion  lurked  under  the  cactus. 

Jim's  mother  thought  less  of  the  Mexicans  than  of  the 
fact  that  there  were  no  sleeping-cars  even  for  the  officers. 
They  would  get  them  on  the  way,  but  it  would  be  a  fear- 
some journey  ever  southward  into  the  heat,  six  days  in  the 
troop-trains. 

Kedzie  was  proud  of  her  husband,  quite  conceited  about 
him,  glad  that  he  was  marching  instead  of  standing  on  the 
curb.  But  her  heart,  doubled  in  bulk,  pounded  against 
her  side  like  the  leaden  clapper  of  a  broken  bell. 

Jim  caught  sight  of  her  where  she  stood  on  the  steps  of 
his  father's  house,  and  her  eyes,  bright  with  tears,  sad- 
dened him.  The  fond  gaze  of  his  mother  touched  another 
well-spring  of  emotion,  and  the  big,  proud  stare  of  his 
father  another. 

But  when  by  chance  among  the  mosaic  of  faces  he  saw 
Charity  Coe  there  was  a  sorrow  in  her  look  that  made  him 
stumble,  and  his  heart  lost  step  with  the  music.  Some- 
how it  seemed  cruelest  of  all  to  leave  her  there. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

HPHE  town  was  monstrously  lonely  when  Kedzie  turned 
1  back  to  her  widowhood.  Jim's  mother  and  father 
and  sister  were  touched  by  her  grief  and  begged  her  to 
make  their  home  hers,  but  she  shook  her  head. 

For  a  while  her  grief  and  her  pride  sustained  her.  She 
was  the  Spartan  wife  of  the  brave  soldier.  She  even 
took  up  knitting  as  an  appropriate  activity.  She  thought 
in  socks. 

But  the  hateful  hours  kept  coming,  the  nights  would 
not  be  brief,  and  the  days  would  not  curtail  their  length 
nor  quicken  their  pace.  The  loathsome  inevitable  result 
arrived. 

Even  her  grief  began  to  bore  her.  Fidelity  grew  inane, 
and  her  young  heart  shrieked  aloud  for  diversion. 

If  battles  had  happened  down  there,  if  something  stirring 
had  only  appeared  in  the  news,  she  could  have  taken  some 
refreshment  of  excitement  from  the  situation.  Heroic 
demands  breed  heroes  and  heroines,  but  all  that  this  crisis 
demanded  was  the  fidelity  of  torpor,  the  loyalty  of  a 
mollusk. 

Nothing  happened  except  the  stupid  chronicles  of  heat 
and  monotony.  The  rattlesnakes  did  not  bite;  the 
tarantulas  scuttered  away;  the  scorpions  were  no  worse 
than  wasps.  The  Mexicans  did  not  attack  or  raid  or 
attempt  the  assassinations  which  popular  hostility  ac- 
cepted as  their  favorite  outdoor  sport.  Mexico  continued 
her  siesta  while  the  United  States  sentineled  the  bedroom. 

Jim's  letters  told  of  scorching  heat,  of  blinding  dust- 

509 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

storms,  and  cloudbursts  that  made  lakes  of  the  camps,  but 
nothing  else  happened  except  the  welter  of  routine. 

The  regiments  had  only  police  work  to  do,  and  the 
task  grew  irksome.  Men  began  to  think  of  their  neglected 
businesses.  The  men  who  stayed  at  home  were  sharing 
bountifully  in  the  prosperity  of  the  times.  The  volunteers 
at  the  Border  were  wasting  their  abilities  for  fifteen  dollars 
a  month. 

The  officers  began  to  resign  by  the  score,  by  the  hun- 
dred. As  many  enlisted  men  dropped  out  as  could  beg 
off.  Jim  could  afford  to  stay;  he  would  not  resign, 
though  Kedzie  wrote  appeals  and  finally  demands  that 
he  return  to  his  wretched  wife. 

Resentment  replaced  sorrow  in  her  heart.  She  began 
to  impute  ugly  motives  to  his  absence.  The  tradition  of 
the  alluring  Mexican  senorita  obsessed  her.  She  imagined 
him  engaged  in  wild  romances  with  sullen  beauties.  She 
was  worried  about  guitar  music  and  stilettoes. 

If  there  were  beautiful  senoritas  there  in  McAllen, 
Jim  did  not  see  them.  His  dissipations  were  visits  to  the 
movie  shows  and  excursions  for  dinner  to  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Riley's  hotel  at  Mission.  Liquor  was  forbidden  to  officers 
and  men  under  dire  penalties,  and  Jim's  conviviality  was 
restricted  to  the  soda-water  fountains.  He  became  as 
rabid  a  consumer  of  ice-cream  cones  and  sundaes  as  a 
matinee  girl.  It  was  a  burlesque  of  war  to  make  the 
angels  hold  their  sides,  if  the  angels  could  forget  the 
slaughter-house  of  Europe. 

Jim  felt  that  the  Government  had  buncoed  him  into  this 
comic-opera  chorus.  He  resented  the  service  as  an  in- 
carceration. But  he  would  not  resign.  For  months  he 
plodded  the  doleful  round  of  his  duties,  ate  bad  food, 
poured  out  unbelievable  quantities  of  sweat  and  easily 
believable  quantities  of  profanity. 

On  the  big  practice  hike  through  the  wilderness  who 
that  saw  him  staggering  along,  choked  with  alkali  dust, 
knouted  by  the  sun,  stabbed  by  the  cactus,  carrying  two 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

rifles  belonging  to  worn-out  soldiers  in  addition  to  his  own 
load,  looking  forward  to  the  privilege  of  throwing  him- 
self down  by  the  roadside  for  ten  minutes'  respite,  pray- 
ing for  the  arrival  in  camp  with  its  paradise  of  a  little 
shelter  tent  and  beans  and  bacon  for  dinner  or  for  break- 
fast or  supper — who  could  have  believed  that  he  did  not 
have  to  do  it  ?  That  he  had  indeed  at  home  soft  luxuries,  a 
rosy  little  wife,  a  yacht,  and  servants  to  lift  his  shoes  from 
the  floor  for  him? 

It  was  easier,  however,  for  him  to  get  along  thus  there 
where  everybody  did  the  same  than  it  was  for  Kedzie 
to  get  along  ascetically  in  New  York  where  nearly  every- 
body she  knew  was  gay. 

She  might  have  gone  down  to  Texas  to  see  Jim,  but  when 
he  wrote  her  how  meager  the  accommodations  were  and 
how  harsh  the  comforts,  she  pained  him  by  taking  his 
advice.  Like  almost  all  the  other  wives,  she  stayed  at 
home  and  made  the  best  of  it. 

The  best  was  increasingly  bad.  Her  lot,  indeed,  was 
none  too  cheerful.  After  her  clandestine  marriage  she  had 
confronted  her  husband's  parents,  and  the  result  was  not 
satisfactory.  She  had  had  no  honeymoon,  and  her  hus- 
band's friends  were  chill  toward  her.  Then  he  marched 
away  and  left  her  for  half  a  year. 

She  was  young  and  pretty  and  restless.  She  had  ac- 
quired a  greed  of  praise.  She  had  given  up  her  public 
glory  to  be  her  husband's  private  prima  donna;  and  then 
her  audience  had  abandoned  her. 

Though  her  soul  traveled  far  in  a  short  time  by  the 
calendar,  every  metamorphosis  was  slow  and  painful  and 
imperceptible.  She  wept  her  eyes  dry;  then  moped  until 
her  gloom  grew  intolerable.  The  first  diversion  she  sought 
was  really  an  effort  of  her  grief  to  renew  itself  by  a  little 
repose.  Her  first  amusement  was  for  her  grief's  sake. 
But  before  long  her  diversions  were  undertaken  for 
diversion's  sake. 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

She  had  to  have  friends  and  she  had  to  take  what  she 
could  get.  The  more  earnest  elements  of  society  did  not 
interest  her,  nor  she  them.  The  fast  crowd  disgusted  her 
at  first,  but  remained  the  only  one  that  did  not  repulse 
her  advances. 

Her  first  glimpses  of  the  revelers  filled  her  with  re- 
pugnance and  confirmed  her  in  what  she  had  heard  and 
read  of  the  wickedness  of  the  rich.  The  fact  that  she  had 
seen  also  the  virtuous  rich,  solemn  rich,  religious  rich, 
miserly  rich,  was  forgotten.  The  fact  that  in  every  stage 
of  means  there  are  the  same  classes  escaped  her  memory. 
She  had  known  of  middle  classes  where  libertinism  flour- 
ished, had  known  of  licentiousness  among  the  poor  shop- 
keepers, shoddy  intriguers  in  the  humble  boarding-houses. 

But  now  she  felt  that  money  made  vice  and  forgot 
that  vice  is  one  of  the  amusements  accessible  to  the  very 
poorest,  to  all  who  inherit  flesh  and  its  appetites. 

Gradually  she  forgot  her  horror  of  dissipation.  The  out- 
swirling  eddy  of  the  gayer  crowd  began  to  gather  and  com- 
pel her  feet.  She  lacked  the  wisdom  to  attract  the  in- 
tellectuals, the  culture  to  run  with  the  artistic  and  musical 
sets,  the  lineage  to  satisfy  that  curious  few  who  find  a 
congeniality  in  the  fact  that  their  ancestors  were  respect- 
able and  recorded  persons. 

In  the  fast  gang  she  did  not  need  to  have  or  use  her 
brains.  She  did  not  need  a  genealogy.  Her  beauty  was 
her  admission-fee.  Her  restlessness  was  her  qualification. 

Those  who  were  careless  of  their  own  behavior  were  care- 
less of  their  accomplices.  They  accepted  Kedzie  without 
scruple.  They  accepted  especially  the  invitations  she 
could  well  afford.  She  ceased  to  be  afraid  of  a  compliment. 
She  grew  addicted  to  flattery.  She  learned  to  take  a  joke 
off-color  and  match  it  in  shade. 

She  met  women  of  malodorous  reputation  and  found  that 
they  were  not  so  black  as  they  had  been  painted.  She 
learned  how  warm-hearted  and  charitable  a  woman  could 
be  for  whom  the  world  had  a  cold  shoulder  and  no  charity. 

512 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

She  extended  her  tolerance  from  men  whose  escapades 
had  been  national  topics  to  women  who  had  been  involved 
in  distinguished  scandals  and  were  busily  involving  them- 
selves anew.  Being  tolerant  of  them,  she  had  to  be 
tolerant  of  their  ways.  Forgiving  the  sinner  helps  to 
forgive  the  sin.  There  are  few  things  more  endearing 
than  forgiveness.  One  of  the  most  appealing  figures  in 
literature  and  art  is  the  forgiven  woman  taken  in  adultery. 

And  thus  by  easy  stages  and  generous  concessions 
Kedzie,  who  had  begun  her  second  marriage  with  the 
strictest  ideals  of  behavior,  found  herself  surrounded  by 
people  of  a  loose-reined  life.  Things  once  abhorred  be- 
came familiar,  amusing,  charming. 

It  was  increasingly  difficult  to  resent  advances  toward 
her  own  citadel  which  she  had  smiled  at  in  others.  She 
grew  more  and  more  gracious  toward  a  narrowing  group 
of  men  till  the  safety-in-numbers  approached  the  peril- 
in-fewness.  She  grew  more  and  more  gracious  to  a 
widening  group  of  women,  and  they  brought  along  their 
men. 

Kedzie  even  forgave  Pet  Bettany  and  struck  up  a 
friendship  with  her.  Pet  apologized  to  her  other  friends 
for  taking  up  with  Kedzie,  by  the  sufficient  plea,  "She 
gives  such  good  food  and  drink  at  her  boarding-house." 

Kedzie  found  Pet  intensely  comforting  since  Pet  was 
full  of  gossip  and  satirized  with  contempt  the  people 
who  had  been  treating  Kedzie  with  contempt.  It  is 
mighty  pleasant  to  hear  of  the  foibles  of  our  superiors. 
The  illusion  of  rising  is  acquired  by  bringing  things  down 
to  us  as  well  as  by  rising  to  them.  When  Pet  told  Kedzie 
something  belittling  about  somebody  big  Kedzie  felt  her- 
self enlarged. 

Pet  had  another  influence  on  Kedzie.  Pet  was  no 
more  contemptuous  of  aristocrats  than  she  was  of  people 
who  were  good  or  tried  to  be,  or,  failing  that,  kept  up  a 
decent  pretense. 

Pet  made  a  snobbery  of  vice  and  had  many  an  anecdote 
33  513 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

of  the  lapses  of  the  respectable  and  the  tircumspectable. 
Her  railing  way  brought  virtue  itself  into  disrepute  and 
Kedzie  was  frightened  out  of  her  last  few  senses.  She  fell 
under  the  tyranny  of  the  risque,  which  is  as  fell  as  the 
tyranny  of  the  prudish. 

Prissy  Atterbury  had  told  Pet  without  delay  of  meeting 
Jim  Dyckman  at  Charity's  home.  Now  that  Pet  was  a 
crony  of  Kedzie1  s  she  recalled  the  story.  Finding  Kedzie 
one  day  suffering  from  an  attack  of  scruples,  and  de- 
clining to.  accept  an  invitation  because  "Jim  might  not 
like  it,"  Pet  laughed: 

" Oh,  Jim!  What  right  has  he  got  to  kick?  He  didn't 
lose  much  time  getting  back  to  his  Charity  Coe  after  he 
married  you." 

"His  Charity  Coe!"  Kedzie  gasped.  "What  do  you 
mean  by  his  Charity  Coe?" 

"Why,  his  old  reliable  sweetheart.  He's  been  silly 
about  her  since  babyhood.  When  she  married  Pete 
Cheever  he  moped  like  a  sick  hound.  And  didn't 
he  beat  up  Pete  in  a  club  only  a  few  days  before  he 
.married  you?" 

This  was  all  news  to  Kedzie  and  it  sickened  her.  She 
demanded  more  poison,  and  Pet  ladled  it  out  joyously. 

She  told  Kedzie  how  Prissy  Atterbury  found  Jim  at 
Charity's  home.  But  Kedzie  remembered  vividly  that 
Jim  had  said  he  met  Charity  on  the  street.  And  now  she 
had  caught  him  in  a  lie,  a  woman-lie !  He  was  not  there 
to  explain  that  he  visited  Charity  in  Kedzie's  behalf,  and 
if  he  had  explained  it  would  only  have  embittered  her  the 
more. 

Being  quite  convinced  now  of  Jim's  perfidy,  she  denied 
the  possibility  of  it. 

"Jim's  square,  I'm  sure.  There  couldn't  be  anything 
wrong  with  him.  And  Mrs.  Cheever  is  an  awful  prig, 
everybody  says." 

Pet  whooped  witn  laughter:  "They're  the  worst  sort. 
Why,  only  a  couple  of  years  ago  Jim  and  Charity  were  up 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

in  the  Adirondacks  alone  together.     Prissy  Atterbury 
caught  them  sneaking  back." 

So  one  lie  was  used  to  bolster  another.  The  firmest 
structures  can  be  thus  established  by  locking  together 
things  that  will  not  stand  alone — as  soldiers  stack  arms. 
Pet  went  on  stacking  lies  and  Kedzie  grew  more  and  more 
distressed,  then  infuriated.  Her  bitterness  against  Char- 
ity grew  the  more  acid.  Charity's  good  repute  became 
now  the  whitewash  on  a  sepulcher  of  corruption.  Her 
resentment  of  the  woman's  imagined  hypocrisy  and  of  her 
husband's  apparent  duplicity  blazed  into  an  eagerness 
for  vengeance — the  classic  vengeance  of  punishing  a  crime 
by  committing  another  of  the  sort.  Like  revenges  like; 
an  eye  for  an  eye,  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,  a  loyalty  for  a  loyalty. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

BUT  now,  as  often  happens  in  evil  as  in  virtue,  Kedzie 
had  the  willingness,  but  not  the  resolution.  She 
threw  her  scruples  into  the  waste-basket,  accepted  Pet's 
invitation,  went  with  her  and  her  crowd  to  one  of  the 
most  reckless  dances  in  Greenwich  Village,  where  men  and 
women  strove  to  outdo  the  saturnalia  of  Montmartre,  vied 
with  one  another  in  exposure,  and  costumed  themselves  as 
closely  according  to  the  fig-leaf  era  as  the  grinning  police- 
men dared  to  permit. 

Kedzie  screamed  with  laughter  at  some  of  the  ribaldry 
and  danced  in  a  jostle  of  fauns,  satyrs,  nymphs,  and 
maenads.  Yet  when  her  partner  clenched  her  too  straitly 
she  could  not  forget  that  she  was  the  wife  of  an  absent 
soldier.  And  when  on  the  way  home  he  tried  to  flirt 
she  could  not  quell  the  nausea  in  her  soul. 

But  practice  makes  perfect  and  Kedzie  was  learning  to 
be  downright  bad,  though  yet  awhile  she  gave  but  stingy 
reward  to  her  assiduous  cavaliers.  She  was  what  Pet 
called  a  demi-veuve  and  unprofitable  to  the  men  she  used 
as  weapons  of  her  revenge  against  her  innocent  and  un- 
witting husband. 

There  was  another  factor  working  toward  her  debase- 
ment and  that  was  the  emancipation  of  her  pocket-book. 
It  was  a  fairy's  purse  now  and  she  could  not  scatter  her 
money  faster  than  she  found  it  renewed.  Her  entertain- 
ments grew  more  lavish  and  more  reckless.  She  had  an 
inspiration  at  last.  She  would  put  Jim's  yacht  into  com- 
mission and  take  a  party  of  friends  on  a  cruise,  well 
chaperoned,  of  course. 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

She  sent  instructions  to  the  master  of  the  vessel  to  get 
steam  up.  Knudsen  sent  back  word  that  he  would  have 
to  have  an  order  from  the  boss.  She  promised  to  have 
him  discharged  and  in  her  anger  fired  a  telegram  off  to 
Jim,  demanding  that  he  rebuke  the  surly  skipper  and  order 
the  boat  out. 

The  telegram  found  Jim  in  a  state  of  doldrums.  The 
food  had  turned  against  him,  homesickness  was  like  a 
fever  in  him,  and  the  monotony  of  his  routine  had  begun 
to  get  his  nerves.  He  was  startled  and  enraged  at 
Kedzie's  request  for  permission  to  go  yachting  and  he 
fired  back  a  telegram: 

Knudsen  was  right  I  am  astonished  at  your  suggestion 
do  not  approve  in  the  slightest. 

He  regretted  his  anger  when  it  was  too  late.  Kedzie, 
who  had  already  made  up  her  list  of  guests  and  received 
their  hilarious  acceptances,  was  compelled  to  withdraw  the 
invitations.  She  would  have  bought  a  yacht  of  her  own, 
but  she  could  not  afford  it !  She  was  not  allowed  so  large 
a  fund.  She,  Mrs.  Dyckman,  wanted  something  and 
could  not  afford  it!  What  was  the  use  of  anything,  any- 
how? 

Times  had  changed  for  Kedzie  indeed  when  the  little 
beggar  from  the  candy-store  who  had  cried  once  when 
Skip  Magruder,  the  bakery  waiter,  refused  to  take  her  to 
the  movies  twice  in  one  Sunday,  was  crying  now  because 
her  miser  of  a  husband  forbade  her  a  turbine  yacht  as  a 
plaything. 

She  was  crushed  with  chagrin  and  she  felt  completely 
absolved  of  the  last  obligation.  What  kind  of  a  brute 
had  she  married  who  would  go  away  on  a  military  picnic 
among  his  nice,  warm  cacti  and  deny  his  poor  deserted 
wife  a  little  boat-ride  and  a  breath  of  fresh  air? 

If  she  had  had  any  lingering  inclination  to  visit  Jim 
in  Texas  she  gave  it  up  now.  She  went  to  Newport  in- 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

stead  and  took  Pet  Bettany  along  for  a  companion — at 
Kedzie's  expense,  of  course. 

Charity  Coe  Cheever  was  visiting  Mrs.  Noxon  again 
and  Kedzie  snubbed  her  haughtily  when  she  met  her  at 
the  Casino  or  on  Bailey's  Beach.  Kedzie  was  admitted 
to  that  sacred  surf  of  the  Spouting  Rock  Association  now 
and  she  was  as  pretty  a  naiad  as  there  was. 

But  now  she  encountered  occasional  rebuffs  from  cer- 
tain people,  not  only  because  she  was  common,  but  be- 
cause she  was  reputed  to  be  fast.  When  the  gossip- 
peddlers  brought  her  this  fierce  verdict  she  was  hardened 
enough  to  scorn  the  respectables  as  frumps.  She  grew  a 
little  more  impudent  than  ever  and  her  pout  began  to  take 
the  form  of  a  sneer. 

She  lingered  in  and  about  Newport  till  the  autumn 
came.  Occasional  excursions  on  other  people's  yachts 
or  in  her  own  cars  or  to  house-parties  broke  the  season, 
but  she  loved  Newport.  Jim's  name  had  given  her  entry 
to  places  and  sets  whence  nobody  quite  had  the  courage 
or  the  authority  to  dismiss  her. 

At  Newport  there  was  a  very  handsome  fool  named 
Jake  Vanderveer,  distantly  related  to  the  charming  Van- 
der  Veers  as  well  as  the  Van  der  Veers.  He  was  even 
more  distantly  related  to  his  own  wife  at  the  time  Kedzie 
met  him. 

Pet  Bettany  had  told  Kedzie  what  a  rotter  Mrs.  Jake 
was,  and  Kedzie  felt  awfully  sorry  for  Jakie.  So  did 
Jakie.  He  was  sophomoric  enough  to  talk  about  his 
broken  heart  and  she  was  sophomoric  enough  to  suffer  for 
him  most  enjoyably. 

A  little  sympathy  is  a  dangerous  thing.  Married  people 
run  a  great  risk  unless  they  keep  theirs  strictly  mutual  and 
for  home  consumption. 

Jakie  said  he  believed  in  running  away  from  his  grief. 
Kedzie  ran  with  him  for  company.  People's  tongues  ran 
just  as  fast.  Jakie  was  making  a  lot  of  money  in  Wall 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Street  and  trying  to  drown  his  sorrows  there.  Kedzie 
was  thrilled  by  his  jargon  of  the  market  and  he  taught 
her  how  to  read  the  confetti  streamers  that  pour  out  of  the 
ticker.  Jakie  confided  to  her  a  great  scheme. 

"  The  only  way  I  can  keep  that  wife  of  mine  from  spend- 
ing all  my  money  is  to  spend  it  first." 

"You're  a  genius!"  Kedzie  said.  A  woman  usually  ap- 
proves almost  any  scheme  for  keeping  money  away  from 
another  woman. 

"I'm  going  to  make  a  killing  next  week,"  said  Jakie, 
"and  I'm  going  just  quietly  to  put  a  couple  of  thou.  up 
for  my  little  pal  Kedzie.  You  can't  lose.  If  you  win 
you  can  buy  yourself  five  thousand  dollars'  worth  of 
popcorn." 

Kedzie  was  enraptured.  She  would  have  some  money 
at  last  that  she  didn't  have  to  drag  out  of  her  husband. 
She  prayed  the  Lord  for  a  rising  market. 

Then  Mrs.  Dyckman  sent  for  her.  When  Kedzie  called 
the  servants  were  extremely  solemn.  Kedzie  had  to  wait 
till  the  doctor  left.  He  was  very  solemn,  too. 

Kedzie  found  her  mother-in-law  in  bed.  She  looked  like 
a  small  mountain  after  a  snow-storm.  It  was  strange  to 
Kedzie  to  find  one  so  mighty  brought  low  and  speaking 
in  so  tiny  a  voice.  Her  husband  was  there  and  he  was 
haggard  with  sympathy  and  alarm,  a  very  elephant  in 
terror.  He  was  less  courteous  than  usual  to  Kedzie  and 
he  left  the  room  at  his  wife's  signal.  Mrs.  Dyckman  was 
more  gentle  than  ever. 

"Draw  your  chair  up  close,  my  child,"  she  whispered. 
"I  want  to  have  a  little  talk  with  you  and  my  voice  is 
weak." 

Kedzie  was  alarmed  enough  to  revert  to  a  simple  phrase : 
"I'm  awfully  sorry  you're  sick.  Are  you  very  sick?" 

"Very.  There's  such  a  lot  of  me,  you  know.  It's  dis- 
gusting. I've  scared  my  poor  husband  to  death.  I'm 
glad  Jim  isn't  here  to  be  worried.  I  hope  I'll  not  have 
to  send  for  him.  But  I'd  like  to." 

519 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Kedzie  felt  a  little  quiver  of  alarm.  She  did  not  quite 
want  Jim  to  come  back  just  yet.  She  had  grown  used  to 
his  absence.  His  return  would  deprive  poor  Jakie  of 
solace. 

Mrs.  Dyckman  took  Kedzie's  hand  and  stared  at  her 
sadly. 

"You're  looking  a  little  tired,  my  dear,  if  you'll  forgive 
me  for  being  frank.  I'm  very  old  and  I  very  much  want 
you  and  Jim  to  win  out.  Lying  here  I  take  things  too 
anxiously,  I  suppose,  but — I'm  frightened.  I  don't  want 
my  boy  and  you  to  go  the  way  so  many  other  couples  do. 
He's  left  you  because  his  country  needed  him,  or  thought 
it  did.  It  wouldn't  look  well  to  have  him  come  back 
and  find  that  in  his  absence  you  had  forgotten  him.  Now, 
would  it?" 

"Why,  Mrs.  Dyckman!"  Kedzie  gasped,  getting  her 
hand  away. 

Mrs.  Dyckman  groped  for  it  and  took  it  back.  "  Don't 
be  vexed.  Or  if  you  must  be,  pout  as  you  used  to.  You 
mustn't  grow  hard,  my  child.  Your  type  of  beauty 
doesn't  improve  with  cynicism.  You  must  think  sweet 
thoughts  or  simply  be  petulant  when  you're  angry. 
Don't  grow  hard!  If  nothing  else  will  move  you  let  me 
appeal  to  your  pride.  You  are  traveling  with  a  hard 
crowd,  a  cruel  pack,  Miss  Bettany's  pack,  and  a  silly 
lot  of  men  like  Jake  Vanderveer.  And  you  mustn't,  my 
child.  You  just  mustn't  get  hard  and  brazen.  Couldn't 
you  give  up  Miss  Bettany?  She's  an  absolutely  unprin- 
cipled creature.  She's  bad,  and  you  must  know  it.  Don't 
you?" 

Kedzie  could  not  answer,  or  would  not.  Mrs.  Dyck- 
man's  voice  grew  poignant. 

"I've  lived  so  long  and  seen  so  much  unhappiness. 
There  is  so  much  tragedy  across  the  water.  My  poor 
daughter  has  had  a  cable  that  her  husband's  brother  has 
been  killed  in  France.  Her  husband  has  been  wounded; 
she  is  sailing  back.  So  many  men,  so  many,  many  men  are 

520 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

dying.  The  machine-guns  go  like  scythes  all  day  long, 
and  the  poor  fellows  lie  out  there  in  the  shrapnel  rain — 
Oh,  it  is  unbelievable.  And  Europe's  women  are  under- 
going such  endless  sorrow;  every  day  over  there  the  lists 
contain  so  many  names.  So  many  of  Cicely's  friends 
have  perished.  Life  never  was  so  full  of  sorrow,  my  dear, 
but  it  is  such  a  noble  sorrow  that  it  seems  as  if  nobody 
had  any  right  to  any  other  kind  of  sorrow. 

"You  are  young,  dear  child.  You  are  lonely  and  rest- 
less; but  you  don't  realize  how  loathsome  it  is  to  other 
people  to  see  such  recklessness  going  on  over  here  while 
such  lofty  souls  are  going  to  death  in  droves  over  there. 
The  sorrow  you  will  bring  on  yourself  and  all  of  us,  and 
on  poor  Jim,  will  be  such  a  hateful  sorrow,  my  dear,  such 
an  unworthy  grief!" 

Kedzie  choked,  and  mumbled,  "I  don't  think  I  know 
what  you  mean." 

Mrs.  Dyckman  petted  her  hand:  "  I  don't  think  you  do. 
I  hope  not.  But  take  an  old  woman's  word  for  it,  be — be 
Caesar's  wife?" 

"Csesar's  wife?"  Kedzie  puzzled.     "What  did  she  do?" 

"It  was  what  she  didn't  do.  Well,  I  haven't  the 
strength — or  the  right,  perhaps — to  tell  you  any  more. 
Yes,  I  will.  I  must  say  this  much.  You  are  the  sub- 
ject of  very  widespread  criticism,  and  Jim  is  being 
pitied." 

"Me  criticized?     Jim  pitied?     Why?     For  what?" 

"For  the  things  you  do,  my  dear,  the  places  you  go,  and 
the  hours  you  keep — and  the  friends  you  keep." 

"That's  disgusting!"  Kedzie  snarled.  "The  long- 
tongued  gossips!  They  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  them- 
selves." 

Mrs.  Dyckman's  fever  began  to  mount.  She  dropped 
Kedzie's  hand  and  tugged  at  the  coverlet. 

"You'd  better  go,  my  dear.  I  apologize.  It's  useless! 
When  did  age  ever  gain  anything  by  warning  youth? 
a'm  an  old  fool,  and  you're  a  young  one.  And  nothing 

521 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

will  stop  your  ambition  to  run  through  life  to  the  end  of 
it  and  get  all  you  can  out  of  it." 

Kedzie  felt  dismissed  and  rose  in  bewildered  anger. 
Mrs.  Dyckman  heaved  herself  to  one  elbow  and  pointed 
her  finger  at  Kedzie. 

"But  keep  away  from  Jake  Vanderveer!  and  Pet 
Bettany!  or — or —  Send  my  nurse,  please." 

She  fell  back  gasping  and  Kedzie  flew,  in  a  fear  that 
the  old  lady  would  die  of  a  stroke  and  Kedzie  be  blamed 
for  it  forever.  Kedzie  was  so  blue  and  terrified  that  she 
had  to  send  for  Jake  Vanderveer  to  keep  from  going  crazy. 
He  told  her  that  the  market  was  still  on  the  climb,  and 
that  her  sympathy  had  saved  his  life.  He  had  been 
desperate  enough  for  suicide  when  he  met  her,  and  now  he 
was  one  of  the  rising  little  suns  of  finance. 

Mrs.  Dyckman  did  not  die,  but  she  did  not  get  well,  and 
Jim's  father  wrote  him  that  he'd  better  resign  and  come 
home.  It  would  do  his  mother  a  world  of  good,  and  he 
was  doing  the  country  no  good  down  there. 

Jim  was  alarmed;  he  wrote  out  his  resignation  and  sub- 
mitted it  to  his  colonel,  who  showed  him  a  new  order  from 
the  War  Department  announcing  that  no  more  resigna- 
tions would  be  accepted  except  on  the  most  urgent  grounds. 
Idleness  was  destroying  the  Guard  faster  than  a  campaign. 
Jim  returned  to  the  doldrums  with  a  new  resentment. 
He  was  a  prisoner  now. 

He  had  gone  to  Texas  to  find  war  and  his  wife  to 
Newport  to  find  gaiety.  She  found  much  more  than  that. 
On  October  yth  the  old  town  was  stirred  by  something 
genuinely  new  in  sensations — the  arrival  of  a  German 
war  submarine,  the  U-53- 


THE    FOURTH    BOOK 
THE    MARCHIONESS   HAS  QUALMS 


CHAPTER  I 

A  FREIGHT  submarine,  the  Bremen,  had  recently 
A\  excited  the  wonderment  of  a  world  jaded  with 
miracles  by  crossing  from  Helgoland  to  Norfolk  with  a 
cargo.  But  here  was  a  war-ship  that  dived  underneath  the 
British  blockade. 

The  dead  of  the  Lusitania  were  still  unrequited  and 
unburied,  but  the  Germans  had  graciously  promised 
President  Wilson  to  sink  no  more  passenger-ships  without 
warning,  and  they  had  been  received  back  into  the  in- 
dulgence of  the  super-patient  neutrals. 

And  now  came  the  under-sea  boat  to  test  American 
hospitality.  It  was  received  with  amazed  politeness  and 
the  news  flew  through  Newport,  bringing  the  people 
flocking  like  children.  An  American  submarine  con- 
ducted its  guest  to  anchorage.  Mail  for  the  ambassador 
was  put  ashore  and  courtesy  visits  were  exchanged  with 
the  commandant  of  the  Narragansett  Bay  Naval  Station. 
In  three  hours  the  vessel,  not  to  overstay  the  bounds  of 
neutral  hospitality,  returned  to  the  ocean. 

A  flotilla  of  American  destroyers  convoyed  it  outside 
and  calmly  watched  while  the  monster  halted  nine  ships 
off  Nan  tucket,  graciously  permitted  their  crews  and  pas- 
sengers to  take  themselves,  but  no  belongings,  into  open 
boats;  then  torpedoed  the  vessels  one  after  another. 

The  destroyers  of  the  United  States  Navy  stood  by  like 
spectators  on  the  bleachers,  and  when  the  submarine  had 
quite  finished  the  supply  of  ships  the  obliging  destroyers 
picked  up  the  fragments  in  the  open  boats  and  brought 

525 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

them  ashore.  And  the  U-53  went  on  unchecked,  after  one 
of  the  most  astounding  spectacles  in  the  history  of  the  sea. 

Charity  Coe  and  other  women  waited  on  the  docks  till 
midnight  arranging  refuge  for  more  than  two  hundred 
victims.  It  was  a  novel  method  for  getting  into  Newport 
mansions.  Even  Kedzie  took  in  an  elderly  couple.  She 
tried  to  get  a  few  young  men,  but  they  were  all  taken. 

The  next  morning  there  was  a  panic  in  Wall  Street  and 
nearly  two  million  shares  were  flung  overboard,  with  a  loss 
of  five  hundred  million  dollars  in  market  values.  Marine 
insurance-rates  rose  from  a  hundred  to  five  hundred  per 
cent,  and  it  seemed  that  our  ocean  trade  would  be  driven 
from  the  free  seas.  But  everything  had  been  done  ac- 
cording to  the  approved  etiquette  for  U-boats,  and  there 
was  not  even  an  official  protest. 

Once  more  the  Germans  announced  that  they  had 
wrecked  the  British  naval  supremacy,  as  in  the  battle  of 
Jutland,  after  which  glorious  victory  the  German  fleet 
appeared  no  more  in  the  North  Sea. 

Nor  was  there  any  check  in  the  throngs  of  merchant- 
vessels  shuttling  the  ocean  for  the  Allies.  And  that  dis- 
gusted the  Germans.  Their  promises  to  Mr.  Wilson  irked 
them.  They  lusted  again  for  their  old  policy  of  "ruth- 
lessness";  "Schrecklichkeit"  joined  "Gott  strafe"  in  familiar 
speech,  and  Germany  added  America  to  her  "Hymn  of 
Hate."  Strange,  that  among  all  the  warring  peoples  the 
one  nation  that  went  to  battle  with  the  most  fervent 
religious  spirit,  even  putting  "Gott  mit  uns"  on  the  uni- 
forms of  its  soldiers,  that  nation  contributed  to  the  slang 
of  the  day  no  nobler  phrases  than  "Schrecklichkeit"  and 
"strafe"  and  the  equivalents  of  "scrap  of  paper"  and 
"Hymn  of  Hate." 

All  this  meant  little  to  Kedzie  except  that  Jakie  Vander- 
veer,  who  had  been  her  devoted  squire  for  some  time,  was 
caught  and  ruined  in  the  market  slump.  Otherwise  he 
might  have  ruined  Kedzie,  for  he  had  been  dazzling  her 
more  and  more  with  his  lavish  courtship.  When  he  lost 

526 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

his  money  he  left  Newport  and  Kedzie  never  knew  how 
narrow  an  escape  she  had.  She  only  knew  that  she  did 
not  make  the  money  he  promised  to  make  for  her.  She 
said  that  war  was  terrible. 

A  pious  soul  would  have  credited  Providence  with  the 
rescue.  But  Providence  had  other  plans.  One  of  the  vic- 
tims of  the  U-53  was  a  young  English  aviator,  the  Mar- 
quess of  Strathdene.  If  the  U-53  had  not  sunk  the  ship 
that  carried  him  Kedzie  would  have  had  an  exceedingly 
different  future. 

Strathdene  had  been  a  spendthrift,  a  libertine,  and  a 
loafer  till  the  war  shook  England.  He  had  been  well 
shaken,  too,  and  unsuspected  emotions  were  aroused.  He 
had  learned  to  fly  and  insulted  the  law  of  gravity  with 
the  same  impudence  he  had  shown  for  the  laws  of  morality. 

In  due  time  he  was  joined  to  an  air  squadron.  He 
risked  his  life  every  moment  he  was  aloft,  but  the  danger 
became  a  negligible  thing  in  the  thrill  of  the  liveliest  form 
of  big-game  hunting  thus  far  known  to  man.  In  mid- 
sky  he  stalked  his  prey  and  was  stalked  by  it;  he  chased 
German  Taubes  or  was  chased  by  them  into  clouds  and 
out  of  them,  up  hill  and  down  dale  in  ether-land  amid 
the  showers  from  below  of  the  raining  aircraft  guns. 
Strathdene  knew  how  to  dodge  and  duck,  turn  somer- 
saults, volplane,  spiral,  coast  downward  on  an  invisible 
toboggan-slide,  or  climb  into  heaven  on  an  airy  stair. 

The  sky  was  full  of  such  flocks;  the  gallant  American 
gentlemen  who  made  up  the  Escadrille  Lafayette  went 
clouding  with  him,  and  Mr.  Robert  Lorraine,  the  excellent 
actor,  and  Mr.  Vernon  Castle,  the  amiable  revolutionist 
of  the  dance,  and  many  and  many  another  eagle  heart. 
Strathdene  scouted  valuably  during  the  first  battle  of  the 
Somme,  his  companion  working  the  gun  or  the  camera  or 
the  bomb-dropping  lever  as  the  need  might  be. 

And  then  one  day  a  burst  of  shrapnel  from  the  remote 
earth  shattered  his  plane  and  him.  A  slug  of  iron  went 
upward  through  his  hip  and  another  nicked  off  a  bit 

527 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

of  his  shoulder.  But  he  brought  his  wounded  machine 
safely  to  earth  and  toppled  into  the  arms  of  the  hospital 
aids;  went  backward  in  a  motor-ambulance  to  a  receiving- 
station,  then  back  in  a  train,  then  across  the  Channel, 
then  across  the  ocean  in  a  steamer  to  be  sunk  by  a  sub- 
marine and  brought  ashore  in  a  lifeboat.  Strathdene 
had  pretty  well  tested  the  modern  systems  of  vehicular 
transportation. 

The  surgeons  mended  his  wounds,  but  his  nerves  had 
felt  the  shrapnel.  That  was  why  the  sea  voyage  had  been 
advised.  Strathdene  seemed  to  have  a  magnetic  gift  for 
adventure.  An  aircraft  gun  brought  him  down  from  the 
clouds  and  a  submersible  ship  came  up  from  the  deeps  to 
have  a  try  at  him.  Before  long  Kedzie  would  be  saying 
that  fate  had  taken  all  this  trouble  just  to  bring  him  and 
her  together. 

In  the  transfer  from  the  ship  to  the  lifeboat  Strathdene's 
wounds  were  wrenched  and  his  sufferings  renewed.  He 
was  lucky  enough  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  Charity  Coe 
Cheever.  She  was  a  war  nurse  of  experience,  and  he  was 
soon  well  enough  to  try  to  flirt  with  her.  But  she  had 
been  experienced  also  in  the  amorous  symptoms  of  con- 
valescent soldiers  and  she  repressed  his  ardor  skilfully. 
She  put  an  ice-cap  on  his  heart  and  head. 

As  soon  as  he  was  up  and  about  again  he  met  Kedzie. 
It  seemed  to  be  her  business  to  take  away  from  Charity 
Coe  all  of  Charity's  conquests,  and  the  young  Marquess 
found  her  hospitable  to  his  hunger  for  friendship. 

Before  the  first  day's  acquaintance  was  over  Kedzie 
was  as  fascinated  by  his  chatter  as  Desdemona  was  by 
Othello's  anecdotes. 

One  night  Kedzie  dreamed  that  she  was  a  Marquessess 
or  whatever  the  wife  of  a  Marquess  would  be  styled. 

Kedzie  was  herself  again.  Kedzie  was  dreaming  again. 
She  had  an  ambition  for  something  higher  than  her 
station.  She  made  haste  to  encourage  the  infatuated 
Marquess.  Counting  upon  winning  him  somehow  as  her 

528 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

husband,  she  gave  him  encouragement  beyond  any  she  had 
given  her  other  swains. 

But  Strathdene  had  no  intention  of  marrying  her  or 
any  other  woman.  His  heart  was  in  the  highlands, 
the  cloudlands ;  his  heart  was  not  there. 

A  purer  patriot  or  a  warrior  more  free  of  any  taint  of 
caution  than  Strathdene  could  not  be  imagined,  but  other- 
wise he  was  as  arrant  a  scamp  as  ever.  While  he  waited 
for  strength  to  "carry  on"  in  the  brave,  new,  English 
sense,  it  amused  him  to  "carry  on"  in  the  mischievous 
old  American  sense. 

Kedzie  was  determined  that  he  should  live  long  enough 
for  her  to  free  herself  from  Jim  and  make  the  marquisate 
hers.  She  seemed  to  be  succeeding.  She  found  Strath- 
dene as  easy  of  fascination  as  her  old  movie  audiences  had 
been.  He  even  tried  to  write  poetry  about  her  pout; 
but  he  was  a  better  rider  on  an  aeroplane  than  on  Pegasus. 

Kedzie  was  soon  wishing  for  Jim's  return,  since  she 
could  not  see  how  to  divorce  him  till  he  appeared.  She 
tried  to  frame  a  letter  asking  for  her  release,  but  it  was  not 
easy  writing.  She  felt  that  she  would  have  a  better  chance 
of  success  if  Jim  were  within  wheedling  distance.  But 
Jim  remained  away,  and  Kedzie  grew  fonder  and  fonder 
of  her  Marquess,  and  he  of  her. 

Perhaps  they  were  really  mated,  their  pettinesses  and 
selfishnesses  peculiarly  complemental.  In  any  case,  they 
were  mutually  bewitched. 

Their  dalliance  became  the  talk  of  Newport.  Every- 
body believed  that  what  was  bad  enough  at  best  was  even 
worse  than  it  was.  Charity  Coe  heard  the  couple  dis- 
cussed everywhere.  She  was  distressed  on  Jim's  account. 
And  now  she  found  herself  in  just  the  plight  that  had 
tortured  Jim  when  he  knew  that  Peter  Cheever  was 
disloyal  to  Charity  and  longed  to  tell  her,  but  felt  the  duty 
too  odious.  So  Charity  pondered  her  own  obligation. 
She  was  tempted  to  write  Jim  an  anonymous  letter,  but 
had  not  the  cowardice.  She  was  tempted  to  write  to  him 

529 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

frankly,  but  had  not  the  courage.  She  did  at  last  what 
Jim  had  done — nothing. 

Jim's  mother  had  heard  of  Vanderveer's  disappearance 
from  Kedzie's  entourage  and  she  had  improved  with  hope. 
When  she  learned  that  Strathdene  was  apparently  in- 
fatuated she  grew  worse  and  telegraphed  Jim  to  ask  for  a 
leave  of  absence.  She  did  not  tell  Kedzie  of  her  tele- 
gram or  of  Jim's  answer. 

Pet  Bettany  flatly  accused  Kedzie  of  being  guilty,  and 
referred  to  the  Marquess  as  her  paramour.  When 
Kedzie  furiously  resented  her  insolence  Pet  laughed. 

"The  more  fool  you,  if  you  carry  the  scandal  and  lose 
the  fun." 

Kedzie  was  more  afraid  of  Pet's  contempt  than  of  a 
better  woman's.  She  began  to  think  herself  a  big  fool  for 
not  having  been  a  bigger  one.  She  fell  into  an  altogether 
dangerous  mood  and  she  could  no  longer  save  herself. 
She  almost  prayed  to  be  led  into  temptation.  The  un- 
uttered  prayer  was  speedily  answered. 

She  went  motoring  with  Strathdene  late  one  night  in  a 
car  he  had  hired.  When  he  ventured  to  plead  with  her 
not  to  go  back  to  her  home  where  her  servants  provided 
a  kind  of  chaperonage,  she  made  only  a  formal  protest  or 
two.  He  stopped  at  a  roadside  inn,  a  secluded  place  well 
known  for  its  unquestioning  hospitality. 

Strathdene,  tremulous  with  victory,  led  Kedzie  to  the 
dining-room  for  a  bit  of  sup  and  sip.  The  landlord  es- 
corted them  to  a  nook  in  a  corner  and  beckoned  a  waiter. 
Kedzie  was  studying  the  bill  of  fare  with  blurred  and 
frightened  vision  when  she  heard  the  footsteps  of  the 
waiter  plainly  audible  in  the  quiet  room.  They  had  a 
curious  rhythm.  There  was  a  hitch  in  the  step,  a  skip. 

Her  heart  stopped  as  if  it  had  run  into  a  tree.  The 
"skip"  brought  down  on  her  soul  a  whole  five-foot  shelf 
of  remembrances  of  her  first  J^ew  York  love-affair  with 
the  lame  waiter  in  the  bakery.  All  her  good  fortune  had 
been  set  in  motion  by  poor,  old,  shabby  "Skip."  She  had 

530 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

soared  away  like  some  rainbow-hued  bubble  gently  re- 
leasing itself  from  the  clay  pipe  that  inflated  it  out  of 
the  suds  of  its  origin. 

Kedzie  had  learned  to  be  ashamed  of  Skip  as  long  ago 
as  when  she  was  a  Greek  dancer.  She  had  not  seen  or 
heard  of  him  since  she  sent  him  the  insulting  answer  to  his 
stage-door  note.  And  now  he  had  saved  himself  up  for  a 
ruinous  reappearance  when  she  was  in  the  company  of  a 
Marquess — and  on  such  an  errand! 

What  on  earth  was  Skip  doing  so  far  from  the  Bronx 
and  in  the  environs  of  Newport,  of  all  places?  It  occurred 
to  Kedzie  that  Skip  might  ask  her  the  same  question. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  terror  his  footsteps  inspired  was  confirmed  by 
the  unforgetable  voice  that  came  across  her  icy 
shoulder-blades.  He  slapped  the  china  and  silver  down 
with  the  familiar  bravura  of  a  quick-lunch  waiter,  and  her 
heart  sank,  remembering  that  she  had  once  admired  his 
skill. 

The  Marquess  looked  up  at  him  with  a  glare  of  rebuke 
as  Skip  posed  himself  patiently  with  one  hand,  knuckles 
down,  on  the  table,  the  other  on  his  hip,  and  demanded, 
with  misplaced  enthusiasm: 

"Well,  folks,  what's  it  goin'  to  be?" 

The  Marquess  had  been  somewhat  democratized  by  his 
life  in  the  army,  and,  being  a  true  Briton,  he  always  ex- 
pected the  worst  in  America.  He  proceeded  to  order  a 
light  supper  that  would  not  take  too  long.  Skip  crushed 
him  by  saying: 

"Ain't  the  little  lady  takin'  nothin'?" 

Kedzie  was  afraid  to  speak.  She  put  her  finger  on  the 
menu  at  a  chafing-dish  version  of  chicken,  and  the  Mar- 
quess added  it  to  his  order.  Skip  shuffled  away  without 
recognizing  Kedzie.  She  waited  only  for  his  exit  to  make 
her  own. 

It  was  terrifying  enough  to  realize  that  the  moment 
Skip  caught  a  glimpse  of  her  he  would  hail  her  noisily 
and  tell  the  Marquess  all  about  her.  There  still  lingered 
in  Kedzie  a  little  more  honesty  than  snobbery  and  she 
felt  even  less  dread  of  being  "bawled  out"  by  a  waiter 
in  the  presence  of  a  Marquess  than  of  having  Skip  Ma- 
gruder  know  that  she  was  in  such  a  place  even  with  a 

532 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Marquess.  Skip  had  been  good  to  her  and  had  counseled 
her  to  go  straight. 

She  felt  no  gratitude  toward  him  now,  but  she  could  not 
face  his  contempt.  That  would  be  degradation  beneath 
degradation.  She  was  disgusted  with  everything  and 
everybody,  including  herself.  The  glamour  of  the  es- 
capade was  dissipated.  The  excitement  of  an  illicit  amour 
so  delicious  in  so  many  farces,  so  tenderly  dramatic  in 
so  many  novels,  had  curdled.  She  saw  what  an  ugly 
business  she  was  in  and  she  was  revolted. 

Kedzie  waited  only  to  hear  the  swinging  door  whiff 
after  Skip's  syncopated  feet,  then  she  whispered  sharply 
across  the  table  to  the  Marquess: 

"Take  me  out  of  this  awful  place.  I  don't  know  what 
I'm  doing  here.  I  won't  stay!  not  a  moment!" 

"But  we've  ordered — " 

"You  stay  and  eat,  then.  I  won't  stop  here  another 
minute!" 

She  rose.  She  smothered  the  Marquess's  protests  about 
the  awkwardness,  the  ludicrousness  of  such  a  flight. 

"What  will  the  waiter  think?"  he  asked,  being  afraid 
of  a  waiter,  though  of  no  one  else. 

Kedzie  did  not  care  what  the  waiter  thought,  so  long  as 
he  did  not  know  whom  he  thought  it  of.  Strathdene 
gave  the  headwaiter  a  bill  and  followed  Kedzie  out. 
He  was  hungry,  angry,  and  puzzled. 

Skip  Magruder  never  knew  what  a  chaperon  he  had 
been.  If  Providence  managed  the  affair  it  chose  an  odd 
instrument,  and  intervened,  as  usual,  at  the  last  moment. 
Providence  would  save  itself  a  good  deal  of  work  if  it 
came  round  a  little  earlier  in  these  cases.  Perhaps  it 
does  and  finds  nobody  awake. 

Strathdene  demanded  explanations.  Kedzie  told  him 
truth  but  not  all  of  it. 

"  It  suddenly  swept  over  me,"  she  gasped,  "how  horrible 
it  was  for  me  to  be  there." 

She  wept  with  shame  and  when  he  would  have  consoled 

533 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

her  she  kept  him  aloof.  The  astonishing  result  of  the 
outing  was  that  both  came  home  better.  It  suddenly 
swept  over  Strathdene  that  Kedzie  was  innocenter  than 
he  had  dreamed.  She  was  good !  By  gad !  she  was  good 
enough  to  be  the  wife  even  of  a  Strathdene.  He  told 
Kedzie  that  he  wished  to  God  he  could  marry  her.  She 
answered  fervently  that  she  wished  to  God  he  could. 

He  asked  her  "You  don't  really  love  that  Dyckman 
fella,  do  you?" 

"I  don't  really  love  anybody  but  you,"  said  Kedzie. 
"You  are  the  first  man  I  have  really  truly  loved." 

She  meant  it  and  it  may  have  been  true.  She  said  it 
with  sincerity  at  least.  One  usually  does.  At  any  rate, 
it  sounded  wonderful  to  Strathdene  and  he  determined  to 
make  her  his.  He  would  let  England  muddle  along  some- 
how till  he  made  this  alliance  with  the  beautiful  Missou- 
rienne.  But  Kedzie' s  plight  was  again  what  it  had  been; 
she  had  a  husband  extra.  In  some  cases  the  husband  is 
busy  enough  with  his  own  affairs  to  let  the  lover  trot 
alongside,  like  the  third  horse  which  the  Greeks  called 
the  pareoros.  But  neither  Jim  nor  Strathdene  would 
be  content  with  that  sort  of  team-work,  and  Kedzie 
least  of  all. 

She  and  Strathdene  agreed  that  love  would  find  the 
way,  and  Kedzie  suggested  that  Jim  would  probably  be 
decent  enough  to  arrange  the  whole  matter.  He  had  an 
awfully  clever  lawyer,  too. 

Strathdene  had  braved  nearly  every  peril  in  life  except 
marriage.  He  was  determined  to  take  a  shy  at  that. 
He  and  Kedzie  talked  their  honeymoon  plans  with  the 
boyishness  and  girlishness  of  nineteen  and  sixteen. 

Then  Kedzie  remembered  Gilfoyle.  She  had  thanked 
her  stars  that  she  told  Dyckman  the  truth  about  him  in 
time.  And  now  she  was  confronted  with  the  same  situa- 
tion. Since  her  life  was  repeating  its  patterns,  it  would 
be  foolish  to  ignore  the  lessons.  So  after  some  hesitation 
she  told  the  Marquess  that  Jim  Dyckman  was  not  her 

534 


WE   CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

first,  but  her  second.  She  told  it  very  tragically,  made 
quite  a  good  story  of  it. 

But  the  Marquess  had  been  intrepid  enough  to  laugh 
when,  out  of  a  large  woolly  cloud  a  mile  aloft,  a  German 
flying-machine  had  suddenly  charged  him  at  a  hundred 
miles  an  hour.  He  was  calm  enough  now  to  laugh  at  the 
menace  of  Kedzie's  past  rushing  out  of  the  pink  cloud 
about  her. 

"The  more  the  merrier,"  he  said.  "The  third  time's 
the  charm." 

He  sighed  when  he  was  alone  and  thought  it  rather 
shabby  that  Cupid  should  land  him  at  last  with  a  second- 
handed,  a  third-hearted  arrow.  But,  after  all,  these  were 
war  times  and  Economy  was  the  universal  watchword. 
The  arrow  felt  very  cozy. 


CHAPTER  III 

T  TNSELFISHXESS  is  an  acquired  art.  Children 
LJ  rarely  have  it.  That  is  why  the  Greeks  represented 
love  of  a  certain  kind  as  a  boy,  selfish,  treacherous, 
ingratiating,  blind  to  appearances,  naif,  gracefully  ruthless. 

Kedzie  and  Strathdene  were  enamoured  of  each  other. 
They  were  both  zealots  for  experience,  restless  and  reckless 
in  their  zest  of  life.  As  soon  as  they  were  convinced  of 
their  love,  every  restraint  became  an  illegal  restraint, 
illegal  because  they  felt  that  only  the  law  of  love  had 
jurisdiction  over  them. 

When  Kedzie  received  a  telegram  from  Jim  that  he  had 
secured  a  leave  of  absence  for  thirty  days  and  would  be  in 
Newport  in  four  she  felt  cruelly  used.  She  forgot  how 
she  had  angled  for  Jim  and  hustled  him  into  matrimony. 

She  was  afraid  of  him  now.  She  thought  of  him  as  many 
women  in  captured  cities  once  regarded  and  have  recently 
again  regarded  the  triumphing  enemy  as  one  who  would 
count  beauty  the  best  part  of  the  booty. 

Her  loyalty  to  Strathdene  was  compromised,  her  deli- 
cacy was  horrified.  She  was  distraught  with  her  plight. 

She  had  to  tell  the  news  to  Strathdene  and  he  went  into 
frenzies  of  jealousy.  She  had  pledged  herself  to  be  his 
as  soon  as  she  could  lift  the  Dyckman  mortgage.  If  a 
man  is  ever  going  to  be  jealous  he  should^certainly  find 
occasion  for  the  passion  when  he  is  betrothed  to  the  wife 
of  a  returning  soldier.  Strathdene  ought  to  have  been  on 
his  way  back  to  the  aviation-camp,  but  he  had  earned  the 
right  to  humor  his  nerves,  and  Kedzie  was  testing  them 
beyond  endurance. 

536 


WE   CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

It  was  a  tragical-comical  dilemma  for  Kedzie.  Even 
she,  with  her  gift  for  self-forgiveness,  could  not  quite  see 
how  she  was  to  explain  prettily  to  her  husband  that  in  his 
absence  she  had  fallen  in  love  with  another  man.  Wives 
are  not  supposed  to  fall  in  love  while  their  husbands  are 
at  the  wars.  It  has  been  done,  but  it  is  hard  to  prettify. 

Kedzie  beat  her  forehead  in  vain  for  a  good-looking 
explanation.  She  was  still  hunting  one  when  Jim  came 
back.  He  telegraphed  her  that  he  would  come  right 
through  to  Newport,  and  asked  her  to  meet  him  at  the 
train.  She  dared  not  refuse.  She  simply  could  not  keep 
her  glib  promises  to  Strathdene.  It  seemed  almost  trea- 
son to  the  country  for  a  wife  to  give  her  warrior  a  cold 
welcome  after  his  tropical  service.  She  met  him  at  the 
Newport  station.  He  was  still  in  uniform.  He  had 
taken  no  other  clothes  to  Texas  with  him  and  had  not 
stopped  to  buy  any.  He  was  too  anxious  about  his 
mother  to  pause  in  New  York.  He  had  telegraphed  his 
tailor  to  fit  him  out  and  his  valet  to  pack  his  things  and 
bring  them  to  Newport. 

Kedzie  found  him  very  brown  and  gaunt,  far  taller  even 
than  she  remembered.  She  was  more  afraid  of  him  than 
ever.  Strathdene  was  only  a  little  taller  than  she.  She 
was  afraid  to  tell  Jim  that  she  was  another's. 

But  she  made  a  poor  mimicry*  of  perfect  bliss.  Jim  was 
not  critical.  She  was  more  beautiful  than  he  remembered 
her.  He  told  her  so,  and  she  was  flattered  by  his  court- 
ship, miserably  treacherous  as  she  felt. 

She  was  proud  to  be  a  soldier's  wife.  She  was  jealous 
now  of  his  concern  for  his  mother.  He  had  to  go  see  her 
first.  He  was  surprised  to  learn  that  Kedzie  was  not 
living  with  her.  His  mother  had  begun  to  improve  from 
the  moment  she  had  Jim's  telegram.  But  her  eyes  on 
Kedzie  were  terrible. 

Jim  did  not  notice  the  tension.  He  was  too  happy. 
He  was  sick  of  soldiering.  His  old  uniform  was  like  a 
convict's  stripes.  He  was  childishly  ambitious  to  get 

537 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

into  long  trousers  again.  For  nearly  half  a  year  he  had 
buttoned  his  breeches  at  the  knee  and  housed  his  calves 
in  puttees  and  his  feet  in  army  brogans. 

It  was  like  a  Christmas  morning  among  new  toys  for 
him  to  put  on  mufti,  and  take  it  off.  A  bath-tub  full 
of  hot  water  was  a  paradise  regained.  Evening  clothes 
with  a  big  white  shirt  and  a  top-hat  were  robes  of  ascension. 
But  the  clothes  made  to  his  old  measurements  were  worlds 
too  wide  for  his  shrunk  shanks.  He  had  lost  tons,  he  said, 
in  Texas. 

Before  daybreak  the  first  morning  he  terrified  his  cell- 
mate, Kedzie,  by  starting  up  in  his  sleep  with  a  gasp: 
' '  Was  that  reveille ?  My  God,  I '11  be  late !" 

The  joy  of  finding  himself  no  longer  in  a  tent  and  of 
falling  back  on  his  pillow  was  worth  the  bad  dream.  Life 
was  one  long  bad  dream  to  Kedzie.  She  was  guilty  which- 
ever way  she  turned,  and  afraid  of  both  men. 

Jim  had  a  valet  to  wait  on  him.  He  had  the  problem 
of  selecting  his  scarf  and  his  socks  for  the  morning.  Jim 
had  come  into  a  lot  of  money.  He  had  been  earning  a 
bank  clerk's  salary,  with  no  way  of  spending  it.  And  now 
he  had  a  bank  to  spend  and  a  plenty  of  places  to  throw  it. 

But  it  was  hard  for  him  to  believe  that  he  was  a  free 
man  again.  He  was  amazed  to  find  Newport  without 
cactus  and  without  a  scorpion.  He  kept  looking  for  a 
scorpion  on  his  pillow.  He  found  one  there,  but  did  not 
recognize  her. 

Jim  was  as  much  of  a  parvenu  in  Newport  as  Kedzie 
had  ever  been.  He  swept  her  away  at  times  by  his 
juvenile  enthusiasm  and  she  neglected  Strathdene  atro- 
ciously for  a  week. 

A  large  part  of  the  colony  had  decamped  for  New  York 
and  Boston  and  Chicago,  but  those  that  remained  made  a 
throng  for  Jim.  His  mother  was  not  well  enough  to  be 
moved  back  to  New  York,  but  his  sister  had  reached 
England  safely  and  he  was  happy  in  his  luxuries. 

But  he  was  the  only  one  that  was.  His  mother  was 

538 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

bitter  against  Kedzie  for  having  fed  the  gossips.  Kedzie 
was  assured  that  life  with  Jim  had  nothing  new  to  offer 
and  she  resented  him  as  a  barrier  between  herself  and  the 
glory  of  her  future  with  Strathdene  and  "the  stately 
homes  of  England." 

Her  mother  and  father  arrived  in  Newport.  Kedzie 
tried  to  suppress  them  for  fear  that  Strathdene  might  feel 
that  they  were  the  last  two  back-breaking  straws.  But 
she  needed  a  confidante  and  she  told  her  mother  the 
situation. 

Mrs.  Thropp,  like  Kedzie,  had  an  ambition  that  ex- 
panded as  fast  as  opportunity  allowed.  She  was  dazzled 
by  the  thought  of  being  elevated  to  the  peerage.  She 
supposed  it  made  her  a  relative  of  royalty.  She  who  had 
once  dreamed  of  being  neighborly  with  the  great  Mrs. 
Dyckman  was  now  imagining  herself  exchanging  crochet- 
ing formulas  with  Queen  Mary.  She  was  saying  she  had 
always  heard  the  Queen  well  spoke  of.  And  Adna  Thropp 
spoke  very  highly  of  "George." 

They  agreed  that  it  was  their  sacred  duty  to  place  the 
name  of  Thropp  as  high  as  it  could  go,  cost  what  it  would. 

"After  all,"  said  Adna  one  day,  looking  up  from  an 
article  in  a  Sunday  paper — "after  all,  why  ain't  Thropp 
as  likely  a  name  as  Wettin?  Or  Hohenzollern?  And 
what  was  Romanoff  but  an  ordinary  family  once?" 

The  only  thing  that  seemed  to  stand  in  Kedzie's  way 
was  the  odious  name  of  Dyckman. 

"What's  Dyckman,  anyway?"  said  Mrs.  Thropp. 
"Nothin*  but  a  common  old  Dutch  name." 

But  how  to  shake  it  off  was  the  problem.  Kedzie  had 
to  cling  to  Strathdene  with  one  hand  while  she  tried  to 
release  herself  from  the  Dyckmans  with  the  other. 

She  had  a  dreadful  feeling  that  she  might  lose  them 
both  if  she  were  not  exceedingly  careful  and  exceedingly 
lucky. 

Help  came  to  her  unexpectedly  from  Charity  Coe, 
unexpectedly,  though  Charity  was  always  helping  Kedzie. 

539 


CHAPTER  IV 

HARITY  COE  had  been  tormented  by  the  spectacle 
of  her  friend's  wife  flirting  recklessly  with  the  young 
Marquess  of  Strathdene  while  her  husband  was  at  the 
Border  with  the  troops.  But  she  was  far  more  sharply 
wrung  when  she  saw  Kedzie  flirting  with  her  husband, 
playing  the  devoted  wife  with  all  her  might  and  getting 
away  with  it  to  perfection. 

There  is  hardly  anything  our  eyes  bring  us  that  is  more 
hideous  than  known  disloyalty  successfully  masquerading 
as  fidelity.  The  Judas  kiss  is  not  to  be  surpassed  in 
human  detestation. 

With  almost  all  the  world  in  uniform,  Newport  wel- 
comed the  sight  of  one  of  her  own  men  returned  even 
from  what  was  rather  a  siesta  than  a  campaign,  and  old 
Mrs.  Noxon  insisted  on  giving  a  big  party  for  Jim.  She 
insisted  so  strongly  that  Kedzie  did  not  dare  refuse, 
though  she  had  vowed  never  to  step  inside  the  grounds 
where  she  had  made  her  Newport  debut  as  a  hired  nymph. 

Charity  tried  to  escape  by  alleging  a  journey  to  New 
York,  but  Mrs.  Noxon  browbeat  her  into  staying.  Char- 
ity did  not  know  that  Strathdene  was  invited  till  she  saw 
him  come  in  with  the  crowd.  Neither  did  Kedzie.  Old 
Mrs.  Noxon  may  have  invited  him  for  spite  against 
Kedzie  or  just  as  an  international  courtesy  to  the  most  dis- 
tinguished foreigner  in  town. 

She  introduced  Jim  and  the  Marquess,  saying,  "You 
great  warriors  should  know  each  other." 

Jim  felt  sheepish  because  he  had  been  to  no  war  and 
Strathdene  felt  sheepish  because  Jim  was  so  much  taller 

540 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

than  he.  He  looked  up  at  him  as  Napoleon  looked  en- 
viously up  at  men  who  had  no  glory  but  their  altitude. 
Strathdene  was  also  sheepish  because  Jim  said,  very 
simply: 

"Do  you  know  my  wife?" 

If  he  had  not  been  so  tall  that  he  saw  only  the  top  of 
Kedzie's  coiffure  he  would  have  seen  that  her  face  was 
splashed  with  red.  She  mumbled  something  while 
Strathdene  stammered,  "Er — yes — I  have  had  that 
privilege."  He  felt  a  sinking  sensation  as  deadly  as 
when  he  had  his  first  fall  at  the  aviation  school. 

Kedzie  dragged  Jim  away  and  paid  violent  attention 
to  him  all  through  dinner.  Her  sympathy  was  entirely 
for  her  poor  Strathdene.  She  was  afraid  he  would  com- 
mit suicide  or  return  to  England  without  her,  and  she 
could  not  imagine  how  to  get  rid  of  Jim.  Then  she  caught 
sight  of  Charity  Coe,  and  greeted  her  with  a  smile  of 
sincere  delight. 

For  once  Kedzie  loved  Charity.  Suddenly  it  came  upon 
her  what  a  beautiful  solution  it  would  be  for  everybody  if 
Jim  could  take  Charity  and  leave  Kedzie  free  to  take 
Strathdene.  She  told  herself  that  Jim  would  be  ever 
so  much  happier  so,  for  the  poor  fellow  would  suffer 
terribly  when  he  found  that  his  Kedzie  really  could  not 
pretend  to  love  him  any  longer.  Kedzie  felt  quite  tear- 
ful over  it.  She  was  an  awfully  good-hearted  little  thing. 
To  turn  him  over  to  Charity  would  be  a  charming  ar- 
rangement, perfectly  decent,  and  no  harm  to  anybody. 
If  only  the  hateful  laws  did  not  forbid  the  exchange — 
dog-on  'em,  anyway! 

The  more  Kedzie  studied  Charity  the  more  suitable  she 
seemed  as  a  successor.  Her  heart  warmed  to  her  and  she 
forced  an  opportunity  to  unload  Jim  on  Charity  immedi- 
ately after  dinner. 

There  was  music  for  the  encouragement  of  conversation, 
an  expensively  famous  prima  donna  and  a  group  of  strings 
brought  down  from  the  Boston  Symphony  Orchestra. 

54i 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

The  prima  donna  sang  Donna  Elvira's  ferocious  aria  full 
of  indignation  at  discovering  Don  Giovanni's  Don  Juanity. 

Charity,  noting  that  Kedzie  had  flitted  straight  to 
Strathdene  and  was  trying  to  appease  his  cold  rage,  felt 
an  envy  of  the  prima  donna,  who  was  enabled  to  express 
her  feelings  at  full  lung  power  with  the  fortissimo  re- 
inforcement of  several  powerful  musicians.  The  primeval 
woman  in  Charity  longed  for  just  such  a  howling  preroga- 
tive, but  the  actual  Charity  was  so  cravenly  well-bred 
that  she  dared  not  even  say  to  her  dearest  friend,  "Jim, 
old  man,  you  ought  to  go  over  and  wring  the  neck  of  that 
little  cat  of  yours." 

Jim  sat  beaming  at  Kedzie  and  Kedzie  beamed  back 
while  she  murmured  sweet  everythings  to  her  little 
Marquess.  Jim  seemed  to  imagine  that  he  had  left  her 
in  such  a  pumpkin  shell  as  Mr.  Peter  P.  Pumpkineater 
left  his  wife  in,  and  kept  her  so  very  well.  But  Kedzie  was 
not  that  kind  of  kept  or  keepable  woman. 

Jim  would  have  expected  that  if  Kedzie  were  guilty  of 
any  spiritual  corruption  it  would  show  on  her  face. 
People  will  look  for  such  things.  But  she  was  still  young 
and  pretty  and  ingenuous  and  seemed  incapable  of 
duplicity.  And  indeed  such  treachery  was  no  more  than 
a  childish  turning  from  one  toy  to  another.  The  traitors 
and  traitresses  have  no  more  sense  of  obligation  than  a 
child  feels  for  a  discarded  doll. 

Jim  paid  Charity  the  uncomfortable  compliment  of 
feeling  enough  at  home  with  her  to  say,  "Well,  Charity, 
that  little  wife  of  mine  takes  to  the  English  nobility  like 
a  duck  seeing  its  first  pond,  eh?" 

"She  seems  to  be  quite  at  her  ease,"  was  all  that 
Charity  could  say.  Now  she  felt  herself  a  sharer  in  the 
wretched  intrigue,  as  treacherous  as  Kedzie,  no  better 
friend  than  Kedzie  was  wife,  because  with  a  word  she 
could  have  told  Jim  what  he  ought  to  have  known,  what 
he  was  almost  the  only  person  in  the  room  that  did  not 
know.  Yet  her  jaw  locked  and  her  tongue  balked  at  the 

542 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

mere  thought  of  telling  him.  She  protected  Kedzie,  and 
not  Jim;  felt  it  abominable,  but  could  not  brave  the 
telling. 

She  resolved  that  she  would  rather  brave  the  ocean  and 
get  back  to  Europe  where  there  were  things  she  could  do. 

The  support  of  all  the  French  orphans  she  had  adopted 
had  made  deep  inroads  in  her  income,  but  her  conscience 
felt  the  deeper  inroads  of  neglected  duty. 

It  was  like  Charity  to  believe  that  she  had  sinned 
heinously  when  she  had  simply  neglected  an  opportunity 
for  self-sacrifice.  When  other  people  applauded  their 
own  benevolence  if  they  said,  "How  the  soldiers  must 
suffer!  Poor  fellows!"  Charity  felt  ashamed  if  her  sym- 
pathy were  not  instantly  mobilized  for  action. 

A  great  impatience  to  be  gone  rendered  her  suddenly 
frantic.  While  she  encouraged  Jim  to  talk  of  his  ex- 
periences in  Texas  she  was  making  her  plans  to  sail  on  the 
first  available  boat. 

If  the  boat  were  sunk  by  a  submarine  or  a  mine,  death 
in  the  strangling  seas  would  be  preferable  to  any  more  of 
this  drifting  among  the  strangling  problems  of  a  life  that 
held  no  promise  of  happiness  for  her.  She  felt  gagged 
with  the  silence  imposed  upon  her  by  the  code  in  the 
very  face  of  Kedzie's  disloyalty,  a  disloyalty  so  loathsome 
that  seeing  was  hardly  believing. 

It  seemed  inconceivable  that  a  man  or  woman  pledged 
in  holy  matrimony  could  ever  be  tempted  to  an  alien 
embrace.  And  yet  she  knew  dozens  of  people  who  made  a 
sport  of  infidelity.  Her  own  husband  had  found  tempta- 
tion stronger  than  his  pledge.  She  wondered  how  long 
he  would  be  true  to  Zada,  or  she  to  him.  Charity  had 
suffered  the  disgrace  of  being  insufficient  for  her  husband's 
contentment,  and  now  Jim  must  undergo  the  same  dis- 
grace with  Kedzie.  It  was  a  sort  of  post-nuptial  jilt. 

Of  course  Charity  had  no  proof  that  Kedzie  had  been 
more  than  brazenly  indiscreet  with  Strathdene,  but  that 
very  indifference  to  gossip,  that  willingness  to  stir  up 

543 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

slander,  seemed  so  odious  that  nothing  could  be  more 
odious,  not  even  the  actual  crime. 

Besides,  Charity  found  it  hard  to  assume  that  a  woman 
who  held  her  good  name  cheap  would  hold  her  good  self 
less  cheap,  since  reputation  is  usually  cherished  longer 
than  character. 

In  any  case,  Charity  was  smothering.  Even  Mrs. 
Noxon's  vast  drawing-room  was  too  small  to  hold  her 
and  Jim  and  Kedzie  and  Strathdene.  America  was  too 
strait  to  accommodate  that  jangling  quartet. 

She  rose  abruptly,  thrust  her  hand  out  to  Jim  and  said: 

"Good  night,  old  man.     I've  got  to  begin  packing." 

"Packing  for  where?     New  York?" 

"Yes,  and  then  France." 

"I've  told  you  before,  I  won't  let  you  go." 

And  then  it  came  over  him  that  he  had  no  right  even  to 
be  dejected  and  alarmed  at  Charity's  departure.  Charity 
felt  in  the  sudden  relaxing  of  his  handclasp  some  such 
sudden  check.  She  smiled  patiently  and  went  to  tell 
Kedzie  good  night. 

Kedzie  broke  out,  "Oh,  don't  go — yet!"  then  caught 
herself.  She  also  for  quite  a  different  reason  must  not 
regret  Charity's  departure.  Charity  smiled  a  smile  of 
terrifying  comprehension,  shook  her  head,  and  went  her 
ways. 

And  now  Jim,  released,  wandered  over  and  sat  down  by 
Kedzie  just  as  she  was  telling  Strathdene  the  most  im- 
portant things. 

She  could  not  shake  Jim.  He  would  not  talk  to  any- 
body else.  She  wished  that  Charity  had  taken  Jim  with 
her.  Strathdene  was  as  comfortable  as  a  spy  while  Jim 
talked.  Jim  seemed  so  suspiciously  amiable  that  Strath- 
dene wondered  how  much  he  knew. 

Jim  did  not  look  like  the  sort  of  man  who  would  know 
and  be  complacent,  but  even  if  he  were  ignorant  Strath- 
dene was  too  outright  a  creature  to  relish  the  necessity 
for  casual  chatter  with  the  husband  of  his  sweetheart. 

544 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

He,  too,  made  a  resolution  to  take  the  first  boat  available. 
He  would  rather  see  a  submarine  than  be  one. 

Strathdene  also  suddenly  bolted,  saying:  "Sorry,  but 
I've  got  to  run  myself  into  the  hangar.  My  doctor  says 
I'm  not  to  do  any  night  flying." 

And  now  Kedzie  was  marooned  with  Jim.  She  was  in 
a  panic  about  Strathdene;  a  fantastic  jealousy  assailed 
her.  To  the  clandestine  all  things  are  clandestine !  What 
if  he  were  hurrying  away  to  meet  Charity?  Charity 
returned  to  Kedzie's  black  books,  and  Jim  joined  her  there. 

"Let's  go  home,"  said  Kedzie,  in  the  least  honeymoony 
of  tones. 

Jim  said,  "All  right,  but  why  the  sudden  vinegar?" 

"I  hate  people,"  said  Kedzie. 

"Are  husbands  people?"  said  Jim. 

"Yes!"  snapped  Kedzie. 

She  smiled  beatifically  as  she  wrung  Mrs.  Noxon's  hand 
and  perjured  herself  like  a  parting  guest.  And  that  was 
the  last  smile  Jim  saw  on  her  fair  face  that  night. 

He  wondered  why  women  were  so  damned  unreason- 
ably whimsical.  They  may  be  damned,  but  there  is 
usually  a  reason  for  their  apparent  whims. 

35 


CHAPTER  V 

next  day  Kedzie  was  still  cantankerous,  as  it  was 
1    perfectly    natural  that  she  should  be.     She  wanted 
.  to  be  a  Marchioness  and  sail  away  to  the  peerful  sky. 
And  she  could  not  cut  free  from  her  anchor.     The  Mar- 
quess was  winding  up  his  propeller  to  fly  alone. 

Jim,  finding  her  the  poorest  of  company,  called  on  his 
mother.  She  was  well  enough  to  be  very  peevish.  So  he 
left  her  and  wandered  about  the  dull  town.  He  had  no 
car  with  him  and  he  saw  a  racer  that  caught  his  fancy. 
It  had  the  lean,  fleet  look  of  a  thoroughbred  horse,  and  the 
dealer  promised  that  it  could  triple  the  speed  limit.  He 
went  out  with  a  demonstrator  and  the  car  made  good  the 
dealer's  word.  It  ran  with  such  zeal  that  Jim  was  warned 
by  three  different  policemen  on  the  Boston  Post  Road 
that  he  would  be  arrested  the  next  time  he  came  by  in 
such  haste. 

He  decided  to  try  it  out  again  at  night  on  other 
roads.  He  told  the  dealer  to  fill  up  the  tank  and  see  to 
the  lights.  The  dealer  told  the  garage  man  and  the 
garage  man  said  he  would. 

That  evening  at  dinner  Jim  invited  Kedzie  to  take  a 
spin.  She  said  that  she  had  to  spend  the  evening  with  her 
mother,  who  was  miserable.  Jim  said,  "Too  bad!"  and 
supposed  that  he'd  better  run  in  and  say  "Howdy-do*" 
to  the  poor  soul.  Kedzie  hastily  said  that  she  would  be 
unable  to  see  him.  She  would  not  even  let  Jim  ride  her 
over  in  his  new  buzz- wagon. 

Again  he  made  the  profane  comment  to  himself  that 
women  are  unreasonable.  Again  this  statement  was  due 
to  ignorance  of  an  excellent  reason. 

546 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Kedzie  had  tried  all  day  to  get  in  touch  with  Strath' 
dene.  When  she  ran  him  down  at  length  by  telephone 
he  was  dismally  dignified  and  terrifyingly  patriotic.  His 
poor  country  needed  him  and  he  must  return. 

This  meant  that  Kedzie  would  lose  her  first  and  doubt- 
less her  last  chance  at  the  marquisate.  She  pleaded  for  a 
conference.  He  assented  eagerly,  but  the  problem  was 
where  to  confer.  She  dared  not  invite  him  to  the  house 
she  had  rented,  for  Jim  would  be  there.  She  could  not  go 
to  Strathdene's  rooms  at  the  Hilltop  Inn.  She  thought 
of  the  apartment  she  had  stowed  her  mother  in,  and  asked 
him  there.  Then  she  telephoned  her  mother  to  suppress 
dad  and  keep  out  of  sight. 

She  was  afraid  to  have  Jim  take  her  to  her  mother's 
address  lest  her  woeful  luck  should  bring  Strathdene 
and  Jim  together  at  the  door.  That  was  her  excellent 
reason  for  rebuffing  her  husband's  courtesy  and  setting 
out  alone. 

Her  mother  was  only  too  willing  to  abet  Kedzie 's 
forlorn  hope.  It  was  the  forlornness  of  Kedzie  that  saved 
her.  When  Strathdene  saw  her  in  her  exquisite  despair  he 
was  helpless.  He  was  no  Hun  to  break  the  heart  of  so 
sweet  a  being,  and  he  believed  her  when  she  told  him  that 
she  would  die  if  he  tried  to  cross  the  perilous  ocean  with- 
out her.  She  told  him  that  she  would  throw  herself  on 
Jim's  mercy  the  next  day  and  implore  her  freedom.  He 
would  not  refuse  her,  she  assured  him,  for  Jim  was  really 
awfully  generous,  whatever  faults  he  might  have. 

Strathdene  could  well  believe  that  she  would  have  her 
way  with  her  husband  since  he  found  her  absolutely  irre- 
sistible himself.  The  conference  lasted  long,  and  they 
parted  at  last  as  Romeo  and  Juliet  would  have  parted  if 
Juliet  had  been  married  to  the  County  Paris  before  Romeo 
met  her. 

Kedzie  even  promised  Strathdene  that  she  would  not 
wait  till  the  morning,  but  would  at  once  demand  her 
husband's  consent  to  the  divorce.  It  was  only  on  such  an 

547 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

understanding  that  Strathdene  could  endure  to  intrust  his 
delicate  treasure  to  the  big  brute's  keeping. 

Kedzie  entered  her  home  with  her  oration  all  primed. 
But  Jim  was  not  there.  He  did  not  come  home  that 
night.  Kedzie's  anxiety  was  not  exactly  flattering,  but 
it  was  sincere. 

She  wondered  if  some  accident  had  befallen  him  in  his 
new  car.  She  really  could  not  bear  the  thought  of  losing 
another  husband  by  a  motor  accident.  Suppose  he 
should  just  be  horribly  crippled.  Then  she  could  never 
divorce  him. 

She  hated  her  thoughts,  but  she  could  not  be  responsible 
for  them.  Her  mind  was  like  a  lighthouse  in  a  storm. 
It  was  not  to  blame  for  what  wild  birds  the  winds  brought 
in  from  the  black  to  dash  against  her  soul. 

But  Jim  was  neither  killed  nor  crippled.  The  cards 
still  ran  for  Kedzie. 


CHAPTER  VI 

O  PEAKING  of  cards,  Jim  .was  like  a  gambler  with  a  new 
O  pack  of  them  and  nobody  to  play  with. 

He  darted  hither  and  yon  in  his  racer,  childishly  happy 
in  its  paces,  childishly  lonely  for  somebody  to  show  off 
before.  As  he  ran  along  the  almost  deserted  sea  road  he 
passed  the  Noxon  home. 

He  knew  that  Charity  was  visiting  there.  He  won- 
dered which  of  the  lighted  windows  was  hers.  After  much 
backing  and  filling  he  turned  in  and  ran  up  to  the  steps. 
He  got  out  and  was  about  to  ring  the  bell  when  he  heard 
a  piano.  He  went  along  the  piazza,  to  a  window,  and, 
peering  in,  saw  Charity  playing.  She  was  alone  in  the 
music-room  and  very  sadly  beautiful. 

He  tapped  on  the  window.  She  was  startled,  rose  to 
leave  the  room.  He  tapped  again,  remembering  an  old 
signal  they  had  had  as  boy  and  girl  lovers.  She  paused. 
He  could  see  her  smile  tenderly.  She  came  forward  to  the 
window  and  stared  out.  He  stared  in.  Only  a  pane  of 
glass  parted  the  tips  of  their  flattened  noses.  It  was  a 
sort  of  sterilized  Eskimo  kiss. 

The  window  was  a  door.  Charity  opened  it  and  invited 
Jim  in,  wondering  but  strangely  comforted.  He  invited 
her  out.  He  explained  about  his  gorgeous  new  car  and 
his  loneliness  and  begged  her  to  take  the  air. 

She  put  back  her  hands  to  indicate  her  inappropriate 
costume,  a  flimsy  evening  gown  of  brilliant  color. 

"  Mrs.  Noxon  has  gone  out  to  dinner.  I  was  to  go  with 
her,  but  I  begged  off.  I'm  going  to  New  York  to-morrow, 
and  I  was  blue  and — " 

549 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"And  so  am  I.  I've  got  an  extra  coat  in  my  car,  and 
the  night  is  mild." 

"No,  I'd  better  not." 

"Aw,  come  along!" 

"No-o— " 

"Yes!" 

"All  right.     I'll  get  a  veil  for  my  hair." 

She  closed  the  French  window  and  hurried  away.  She 
reappeared  at  the  front  door  and  shut  it  stealthily  after 
her. 

"Nobody  saw  me  go.  You  must  get  me  back  before 
Mrs.  Noxon  comes  home,  or  there'll  be  a  scandal." 

"Depend  on  me!"  said  Jim. 

Muffling  their  laughter  like  two  runaways,  they  stole 
down  the  steps.  Her  high-heeled  slippers  slipped  and  she 
toppled  against  him.  She  caught  him  off  his  balance,  and 
his  arms  went  about  her  to  save  her  and  himself.  If  he 
had  been  Irish,  he  would  have  said  that  he  destroyed 
himself,  for  she  was  so  unexpectedly  warm  and  silken 
and  lithe  that  she  became  instantly  something  other  than 
the  Charity  he  had  adored  as  a  sad,  sweet  deity. 

He  realized  that  she  was  terribly  a  woman. 

They  were  no  longer  boy  and  girl  out  on  a  gay  little  lark. 
They  were  a  man  unhappily  married  and  a  woman  unhap- 
pily unmarried,  setting  forth  on  a  wild  steed  for  a  wild  ride 
through  the  reluctant  autumn  air.  The  neighboring  sea 
gave  out  the  stored-up  warmth  of  summer,  and  the  moon 
with  the  tilted  face  of  a  haloed  nun  yearned  over  them. 

When  Jim  helped  Charity  into  the  car  her  arm  seemed 
to  burn  in  his  palm.  He  hesitated  a  moment,  and  a 
thought  fluttered  through  his  mind  that  he  ought  not  to 
hazard  the  adventure.  But  another  thought  chased  it 
away,  a  thought  of  the  idiocy  of  being  afraid,  and  another 
thought  of  how  impossible  it  was  to  ask  her  to  get  out  and 
go  back. 

He  found  the  coat,  a  heavy,  short  coat,  and  held  it  for 
her,  saw  her  ensconced  comfortably,  stepped  in  and  closed 

550 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

the  door  softly.  The  car  went  forward  as  smoothly  as  a 
skiff  on  a  swift,  smooth  water. 

Charity  was  not  so  solemn  as  Jim.  She  was  excited 
and  flattered  by  such  an  unforeseen  diversion  breaking  in 
on  her  doleful  solitude. 

"  It's  been  so  long  since  a  man  asked  me  to  go  buggy- 
riding,"  she  said,  "that  I've  forgotten  how  to  behave. 
I'm  getting  to  be  a  regular  old  maid,  Jim." 

"Huh!"  was  all  that  Jim  could  think  of. 

It  was  capable  of  many  interpretations — reproof,  anger 
at  fate,  polite  disbelief,  deprecation. 

Jim  tried  to  run  away  from  his  peculiar  and  most  annoy- 
ing emotions.  But  Charity  went  with  him.  She  looked 
back  and  said : 

"Funny  how  the  moon  rides  after  us  in  her  white 
limousine." 

"Huh!"  said  Jim. 

"  Is  that  Mexican  you're  speaking?"  she  chided. 

"I  was  just  thinking,"  Jim  growled. 

"What?" 

"Oh,  nothing  much — except  what  a  ghastly  shame  it  is 
that  so — so — well,  I  don't  know  what  to  call  you — but 
well,  a  woman  like  you — that  you  should  be  living  alone 
with  nothing  better  to  do  than  run  the  gantlet  of  those 
God-awful  submarines  and  probably  get  blown  up  and 
drowned,  or,  worse  yet,  spend  your  days  breaking  your 
heart  nursing  a  lot  of  poor  mangled,  groaning  Frenchmen 
that  get  shot  to  pieces  or  poisoned  with  gas  or —  Oh, 
it's  rotten!  That's  all  it  is:  it's  rotten!" 

"  Somebody  has  to  take  care  of  them." 

"Oh,  I  know;  but  it  oughtn't  to  be  you.  If  there 
was  any  manhood  in  this  country,  you'd  have  Americans 
to  nurse." 

"There  are  Americans  over  there,  droves  of  them." 

"Yes,  but  they're  not  wearing  our  uniform.  We  ought 
to  be  over  there  under  our  own  flag.  I  ought  to  be  over 
there." 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Maybe  you  will  be.  I'll  go  on  ahead  and  be  waiting 
for  you." 

There  is  nothing  more  pitiful  than  sorrow  that  tries 
to  smile,  and  Jim  groaned : 

"Oh,  Charity  Coe!    Charity  Coe!" 

He  gripped  the  wheel  to  keep  from  putting  his  hand  out 
to  hers.  And  they  went  in  silence,  thinking  in  the  epic 
elegy  of  their  time. 

Jim  drove  his  car  up  to  the  end  of  Rhode  Island  and 
across  to  Tiverton;  then  he  left  the  highway  for  the  lonelier 
roads.  The  car  charged  the  dark  hills  and  galloped  the 
levels,  a  black  stallion  with  silent  hoofs  and  dreadful  haste. 
There  was  so  much  death,  so  much  death  in  the  world! 
The  youth  and  strength  and  genius  of  all  Europe  were 
going  over  the  brink  eternally  in  a  Niagara  of  blood. 

And  the  sea  that  Charity  was  about  to  venture  on,  the 
sea  whose  estuaries  lapped  this  sidelong  shore  so  innocently 
with  such  tender  luster  under  the  gentle  moon,  was  draw- 
ing down  every  day  and  every  ni^ht  ships  and  ships  and 
ships  with  their  treasures  of  labor  and  their  brave  crews 
till  it  seemed  that  the  floor  of  the  ocean  must  be  populous 
with  the  dead. 

Charity  felt  quite  close  to  death.  A  very  solemn 
tenderness  of  farewell  endeared  the  beautiful  world  and  all 
its  doomed  creatures.  But  most  dear  of  all  was  this  big, 
simple  man  at  her  side,  the  man  she  ought  to  have  married. 
It  was  all  her  fault  that  she  had  not.  She  owed  him  a 
profound  eternal  apology,  and  she  had  not  the  right  to  pay 
the  debt — that  is,  so  long  as  she  lived  she  had  not  the 
right.  But  if  they  were  never  to  meet  again — then  she 
was  already  dying  to  him. 

It  was  important  that  she  should  not  depart  this  life 
without  making  restitution  of  what  she  owed.  She  had 
owed  Jim  Dyckman  the  love  he  had  pleaded  for  from  her 
and  would  not  get  from  anyone  else. 

He  had  a  right  to  love,  and  it  was  to  be  eternally  denied 
to  him.  He  would  go  on  bitterly  grieved  and  shamed  to 

552 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

think  that  nobody  could  love  him,  for  Charity  had  repulsed 
him,  and  some  day  he  would  learn  that  Kedzie  had  de- 
ceived him. 

Lacking  the  courage  to  warn  him  against  his  wife, 
Charity  felt  that  she  must  have  at  least  the  courage  to 
say: 

"  Good-by,  Jim.  I  have  been  loving  you  of  late  with  a 
great  love." 

There  would  be  no  injury  done  to  Kedzie  thus,  for 
Charity  would  speak  as  a  ghost,  an  impalpable  departed 
one.  There  would  be  no  sin — only  a  beautiful  expiation 
by  confession.  She  was  enfranchised  of  earthly  restraints, 
enfranchised  as  the  dead  are  from  mortal  obligations. 

But  the  moods  that  are  so  holy,  so  pure,  and  so  vast 
while  they  are  moods  resent  words.  Words  are  like  tin 
cups  to  carry  the  ocean  in.  It  is  no  longer  an  ocean  when 
a  bit  of  it  is  scooped  up.  It  is  only  a  little  brackish  water, 
odious  to  drink  and  quenching  no  thirst. 

Charity  could  not  devise  the  first  phrase  of  her  huge  and 
oceanic  emotion.  It  would  have  been  only  a  proffer  of 
brine  that  Jim  could  not  have  relished  from  her.  He 
understood  better  her  silence.  They  went  blindly  on  and 
on,  letting  the  road  lead  them  and  the  first  whim  decide 
which  turn  to  take  and  which  to  pass. 

And  so  they  were  eventually  lost  in  the  land  as  they 
were  lost  in  their  mood. 

And  after  a  time  of  wonderful  enthusiasms  in  their 
common  grief  the  realities  began  to  claim  them  back.  A 
loud  report  like  a  pistol-shot  announced  that  the  poetry 
of  motion  had  become  prose. 

Jim  stopped  the  car  and  became  a  blacksmith  while  he 
went  through  the  tool-box,  found  a  jack  for  the  wheel, 
laboriously  unshipped  the  demountable  rim,  replaced  it 
with  the  extra  wheel,  and  set  forth  again. 

The  job  had  not  improved  the  cleanliness  of  his  hands 
nor  spared  the  chastity  of  his  shirt-bosom.  But  the  car 
had  four  wheels  to  go  on,  and  they  regained  a  main  road 

553 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

at  last  and  found  a  signboard  announcing,  "Tiverton, 
1 8  miles."     That  meant  thirty  miles  to  Newport. 

Charity  looked  at  her  watch.  It  brought  her  back 
from  the  timelessness  of  her  meditation  to  the  world  where 
the  clock  had  a  great  deal  to  say  about  what  was  respect- 
able and  what  not. 

"  Good  Lord !"  she  groaned.  "  Mrs.  Noxon  is  home  long 
ago  and  scared  or  shocked  to  death.  We  must  fly!" 

They  flew,  angry,  both  of  them,  at  having  to  hurry  back 
to  school  and  a  withering  reprimand,  as  if  they  were  still 
mere  brats.  Gradually  the  car  began  to  refuse  the  call 
for  haste.  Its  speed  sickened,  gasped,  died. 

Jim  swore  quite  informally,  and  raged:  "I  told  that 
infernal  hound  to  fill  the  tank.  He  forgot!  The  gas. 
is  gone." 

Charity  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "I  deserved  it,"  she 
said.  "I  only  hope  I  don't  get  you  into  trouble.  What 
will  your  wife  say?" 

"What  won't  she  say?     But  I'm  thinking  about  you." 

"It  doesn't  matter  about  me.  I've  got  nobody  who 
cares  enough  to  scold  me." 

They  were  suddenly  illumined  by  the  headlights  of  an 
approaching  car.  They  shielded  their  faces  from  the  glare 
instinctively.  They  felt  honest,  but  they  did  not  look 
honest  out  here  together. 

The  car  was  checked  and  a  voice  called  from  the  blur, 
"Want  any  help?" 

"No,  thanks,"  Jim  answered  from  his  shadow. 

The  car  rolled  on.  While  Jim  made  a  vain  post- 
mortem examination  of  the  car's  machinery  Charity 
looked  about  for  a  guide-post.  She  found  a  large  sign- 
board proclaiming  "Viewcrest  Inn,  i  mile."  She  told 
Jim. 

He  said:  "  I  know  of  it.  It  has  a  bad  name,  but  so  long 
as  the  gasolene  is  good — I'll  go  get  some.  Make  yourself 
at  home."  He  paused.  "  I  can't  leave  you  alone  here  in 
the  wilderness  at  midnight." 

554 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"I'll  go  along." 

"In  those  high-heeled  shoes?" 

"And  these  low-necked  gown,"  sighed  Charity.  "Oh, 
what  a  fool,  what  a  stupid  fool  I've  been!" 

But  she  set  forth.  Jim  offered  his  arm.  She  declined 
it  at  first,  but  she  was  glad  enough  of  it  later.  They  made 
an  odd-looking  couple,  both  in  evening  dress,  promenading 
a  country  road.  All  the  wealth  of  both  of  them  was  in- 
sufficient to  purchase  them  so  much  as  a  street-car  ride. 
They  were  paupers — the  slaves,  not  the  captains,  of  their 
fate.  Charity  stumbled  and  tottered,  her  ankles  wrenched 
by  the  ruts,  her  stilted  slippers  going  to  ruin.  Jim  offered 
to  carry  her.  She  refused  indignantly.  She  would  have 
accepted  a  lift  from  any  other  vehicle  now,  but  none 
appeared.  The  only  lights  were  in  the  sky,  where  a  storm 
was  practising  with  fireworks. 

"Just  our  luck  to  get  drenched,"  said  Jim. 

It  was  about  the  only  bad  luck  they  escaped,  but  the 
threat  of  it  lent  Charity  speed.  They  passed  one  farm, 
whose  dogs  rushed  out  and  bayed  at  them  carnivorously. 

"That's  the  way  people  will  bark  when  they  find  out 
about  our  innocent  little  picnic,"  said  Charity. 

"They're  not  going  to  find  out,"  said  Jim. 

"Trying  to  keep  it  secret  gives  it  a  guilty  look,"  said 
Charity. 

"What  people  don't  know  won't  hurt  "em,"  said  Jim. 

"What  they  do  imagine  will  hurt  us,"  said  Charity. 

At  the  top  of  a  knoll  in  a  clandestine  group  of  trees 
they  found  "Viewcrest  Inn."  It  was  dark  but  for  a  dim 
light  in  the  office.  The  door  of  that  was  locked. 

Trade  was  dull,  now  that  the  Newport  season  was  over, 
and  only  an  occasional  couple  from  Fall  River,  Providence, 
or  New  Bedford  tested  the  diminished  hospitality.  But 
to-night  there  had  been  a  concurrence  of  visitors.  Jim 
rattled  at  the  door.  A  waiter  appeared,  yawning  can- 
didly. He  limped  to  the  door  with  a  gait  that  Kedzie 
would  have  recognized. 

555 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

He  peered  out  and  shook  his  head,  waving  the  intruders 
away.  Jim  shook  the  knob  and  glowered  back. 

The  waiter,  who,  in  the  classic  phrase,  was  "none  other 
than"  Skip  Magruder,  unlocked  the  door. 

"  Nothin'  doin',  folks,"  said  Skip.  "  Standin*  room  only. 
Not  a  room  left." 

"I  don't  want  any  of  your  dirty  rooms,"  said  Jim.  "I 
want  some  gasolene." 

"Bar's  closed,"  said  Skip,  who  had  a  nimble  wit. 

"I  said  gasolene!"  said  Jim,  menacingly. 

"Sorry,  boss,  but  the  last  car  out  took  the  last  drop  we 
had  in  the  pump.  We'll  have  some  more  to-morrow 
mornin'." 

"My  God!"  Jim  whispered. 

Then  the  storm  broke.  A  thunder  smash  like  the  bolt 
of  an  indignant  Heaven.  It  turned  on  all  the  faucets 
above. 

"Where's  the  telephone?"  Jim  demanded. 

"T.  D.,"  said  Skip. 

"What's  that?" 

"Temporary  discontinued."  Skip  grew  confidential. 
"The  boss  was  a  little  slow  on  the  pay  and  they  shut  him 
off.  We're  takin'  in  a  lot  of  dough  to-night,  though,  and 
he'll  prob'ly  get  it  goin'  to-morrow  all  right." 

To-morrow  again!  Jim  snarled  back  at  the  pack  of 
wolfish  circumstances  closing  in  on  him.  He  turned  to 
Charity. 

"We've  got  to  stay  here." 

Charity  "went  white,"  as  the  saying  is.  The  rain 
streamed  down. 

"We  'ain't  a  room  left,"  said  Skip. 

"You've  got  to  have,"  said  Jim. 

"Have  to  speak  to  the  artshiteck,"  said  Skip.  Then 
he  rubbed  his  head,  trying  to  get  out  an  idea  by  massage. 
"There's  the  poller.  Big  lounge  there,  but  not  made  up. 
Would  you  and  your  wife  wish  the  poller?" 

He  dragged  the  "wife"  with  a  tone  that  nearly  got 

556 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

him  throttled.  But  Jim  paused.  A  complicated  thought 
held  him.  To  protest  that  Charity  was  not  his  wife 
seemed  hardly  the  most  reassuring  thing  to  do.  He  let 
the  word  go  and  ignored  Skip's  cynical  intonation.  Jim's 
knuckles  ached  to  rebuke  him,  but  he  had  not  fought  a 
waiter  since  his  wild  young  days.  And  Skip  was  protected 
by  his  infirmity. 

Charity  was  frightened  and  revolted,  abject  with  re- 
morse for  such  a  disgusting  consequence  of  such  a  sweet, 
harmless  impulse.  She  was  afraid  of  Jim's  temper.  She 
said: 

"Take  the  parlor  by  all  means." 

"All  right,"  said  Jim. 

Skip  fumbled  about  the  desk  for  a  big  book,  and,  finding 
it,  opened  it  and  handed  Jim  a  pen. 

"Register,  please,"  said  Skip. 

"I  will  not." 

"Rules  of  the  house." 

"What  do  I  care  about  your  rules!" 

"Have  to  wake  the  boss,  then." 

"Give  me  the  pen." 

He  started  to  write  his  own  name;  that  left  Charity's 
designation  in  doubt.  He  glanced  at  the  other  names. 
"Mr.  and  Mrs.  George  Washington"  were  there,  "Mr. 
and  Mrs.  John  Smith"  twice,  as  well  as  "William  Jones 
and  wife." 

Jim  wondered  if  the  waiter  knew  him.  So  many 
waiters  did.  At  length,  with  a  flash  of  angry  impulse, 
he  wrote:  "James  D — ,"  paused,  finished  "Dysart," 
hesitated  again,  then  put  "Mr.  and  Mrs."  before  it. 
Skip  read,  and  grinned.  He  did  not  know  who  Jim  was, 
but  he  knew  he  was  no  Dysart. 

Skip  led  the  way  to  the  parlor  up-stairs,  lighted  the 
lights,  and  hastily  disappeared,  fearing  that  he  might  be 
asked  to  fetch  something  to  eat  or  drink.  He  was  so 
tired  and  sleepy  that  even  the  prospect  of  a  tip  did  not 
interest  him  so  much  as  the  prospect  of  his  cot  in  the 

557 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

attic,  where  he  could  dream  that  he  was  in  New  York 
again. 

Jim  and  Charity  looked  at  each  other.  Jim  munched 
his  own  curses,  and  Charity  laughed  and  cried  together. 
Jim's  arms  had  an  instinct  for  taking  her  to  his  heart, 
but  he  felt  that  he  must  be  more  respectful  than  ever 
since  they  were  in  so  respectless  a  plight.  She  never 
seemed  purer  and  sadder  to  him  than  then. 

She  noted  how  haggard  and  dismal  he  looked,  and  said, 
"Aren't  you  going  to  sit  down?" 

"No — not  here,"  he  said.  "You  curl  up  on  that  plush 
horror  and  get  some  rest." 

"I  will  not!"  said  Charity. 

"You  will,  too,"  said  Jim.  "You're  a  wreck,  and  I 
ought  to  be  shot.  Get  some  sleep,  for  God's  sake!" 

"What  becomes  of  you?" 

"  I'll  scout  round  and  find  a  place  in  the  office.  I  think 
there  is  a  billiard-room.  If  worst  comes  to  worst,  I'll  do 
what  Mrs.  Leslie  Carter  did  in  a  play  I  saw — sleep  on  the 
dining-room  table." 

"Not  less  than  a  table  d'hdte  will  hold  you,"  Charity 
smiled,  wanly. 

"Don't  worry  about  me.  You  go  by-by  and  pray  the 
Lord  to  forgive  me  and  help  us  both." 

He  waved  his  hand  to  her  in  a  heartbreak  of  bemocked 
and  benighted  tenderness  and  closed  the  door.  He 
prowled  softly  about  the  office  and  the  adjacent  rooms,  but 
found  no  place  to  sleep.  He  was  in  such  a  fever  of  wrath 
at  himself  that  he  walked  out  in  the  rain  to  cool  his  head. 
Then  he  sank  into  a  chair,  read  an  old  Boston  paper 
twice,  and  fell  asleep  among  the  advertisements. 

He  woke  at  daybreak.  The  rain  had  ended  and  he 
wandered  out  in  the  chill,  wet  grounds  of  the  shabby  inn. 
The  morning  light  was  merciless  on  the  buildings,  the 
leafless  trees,  and  on  his  own  costume.  The  promised 
view  from  the  crest  was  swathed  in  haze — so  was  his  out- 
look on  the  future. 

558 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

His  fury  at  the  situation  grew  as  he  pondered  it.  He 
was  like  a  tiger  in  a  pit.  He  raged  as  much  at  himself  as 
at  the  people  who  would  take  advantage  of  him.  The 
ludicrousness  of  the  situation  added  the  ultimate  torment. 
He  could  not  save  Charity  except  by  ingenious  deceptions 
which  would  be  a  proof  of  guilt  if  they  did  not  succeed 
miraculously. 

The  dress  he  was  in  and  the  dress  she  was  in  were  the 
very  habiliments  of  guilt.  Getting  back  to  Newport  in 
evening  clothes  would  be  the  advertisement  of  their 
escapade.  His  expansive  shirt-bosom  might  as  well  have 
been  a  sandwich-board.  His  broadcloth  trousers  and  his 
patent-leather  pumps  would  be  worse  than  rags. 

And  Charity  had  no  hat.  There  was  an  unmistakable 
dressed-up  eveningness  about  them  both. 

This  struck  him  as  the  first  evil  to  remedy.  As  with 
an  escaped  convict,  his  prime  necessity  was  a  change  of 
clothes.  There  was  only  one  way  to  manage  that.  He 
went  back  to  the  hotel  and  found  a  startled  early-morning 
waiter  sweeping  out  the  office.  Jim  asked  where  the 
nearest  telephone  was,  and  learned  that  it  was  half  a  mile 
away  at  a  farm-house. 

Jim  turned  up  his  collar,  pulled  down  his  motor-cap, 
and  struck  out  along  the  muddy  road.  He  startled  the 
farmer's  family  and  their  large  hands  were  not  wide 
enough  to  hide  their  wider  smiles. 

On  the  long  hike  thither  Jim  had  worked  out  his 
stratagem.  He  called  up  his  house,  or,  rather,  Kedzie's 
house,  in  Newport,  and  after  much  delay  got  his  yawning 
valet  to  the  telephone.  He  never  had  liked  that  valet 
less  than  now. 

"That  you,  Dallam?  My  car  broke  down  out  in  the 
country,"  he  explained,  every  syllable  a  sugarless  quinine 
pill  in  his  throat.  "That  is  to  say,  the  gasolene  gave 
out.  I  am  in  my  evening  clothes,  so  is — er — Mrs. — er — 
the  lady  I  was  with.  I  want  you  to  bring  me  at  once 
an  outfit  of  day  clothes,  and  a — one  of  my  wife's  long 

559 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

motor-coats — a  very  long  one — and  one  of  her  small  hats. 
Then  get  out  my  wife's  limousine  and  send  the  suit-case 
and  the  coat  and  hat  to  me  here  at  the  Viewcrest  Inn,  and 
tell  the  chauffeur  to  bring  an  extra  can  of  gasolene." 

A  voice  with  an  intolerable  smile  in  it  came  back: 
"Very  good,  sir.  I  presume  I'd  better  not  waken  Mrs. 
Dyckman?" 

"Naturally  not.     I  don't  want  to — er — alarm  her." 

"She  was  quite  alarmed  when  you  didn't  come  home, 
sir,  last  night." 

"Well,  I'll  explain  when  I  see  her.  Do  you  understand 
the  situation?" 

"Perfectly,  sir." 

Jim  writhed  at  that.  But  he  had  done  his  best  and  he 
would  take  the  worst. 

The  farmer  gave  him  a  ride  to  the  hotel  in  his  milk- 
wagon.  When  Jim  rode  up  in  a  parody  of  state  he  saw 
Charity  peeping  from  the  parlor  window.  The  morning 
light  had  made  the  situation  plain  to  her.  It  did  not 
improve  on  inspection.  It  took  very  little  imagination 
to  predict  a  disastrous  event,  though  Jim  explained  the 
felicity  of  his  scheme.  He  had  planned  to  have  Charity 
ride  in  in  the  limousine  alone,  while  he  took  his  own  car 
back  with  the  gasolene  that  was  on  the  way. 

The  twain  were  compelled  by  their  costume  to  stay  in 
the  parlor  together.  They  were  ferociously  hungry  and 
ordered  breakfast  at  last.  It  took  forever  to  get  it,  for 
guests  of  that  hotel  were  not  ordinarily  early  risers. 

Skip  Magruder,  dragged  from  his  slumbers  to  serve  the 
meal,  found  Charity  and  Jim  in  the  room  where  he  had 
left  them.  He  made  such  vigorous  efforts  to  overlook 
their  appearance  in  bedraggled  dinner  clothes  at  a  country 
breakfast  that  Jim  threatened  to  break  his  head.  Skip 
grew  surly  and  was  ordered  out. 

After  breakfast  Jim  and  Charity  waited  and  waited, 
keeping  to  the  parlor  lest  the  other  guests  see  them. 

At  last  the  limousine  arrived.  As  soon  as  he  heard  it 

560 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

coming  Jim  hurried  to  the  window  to  make  sure  that  it  was 
his — or,  rather,  his  wife's. 

It  was — so  much  his  wife's  that  she  stepped  out  of  it. 
Also  her  mother.  Also  her  father.  They  advanced  on 
the  hotel. 

Jim  and  Charity  were  stupefied.  There  was  a  look  on 
Kedzie's  face  that  frightened  him. 

"She  means  business,"  he  groaned. 

Charity  sighed:   "Divorce!    And  me  to  be  named!" 

"She  won't  do  that.     She  owes  you  everything." 

"What  an  ideal  chance  to  pay  off  the  debt!" 

"Don't  you  worry.     I'll  protect  you,"  Jim  insisted. 

"How?"  said  Charity. 

"  I'll  fight  the  case  to  the  limit." 

"Are  you  so  eager  to  keep  your  wife?"  said  Charity. 

"No.  I  never  did  love  her.  I'll  never  forgive  her  for 
this." 

But  he  had  not  the  courage  to  go  and  meet  Kedzie  and 
her  mother  and  her  father.  They  were  an  unconscionable 
time  coming. 

He  did  not  know  that  Kedzie  and  Skip  Magruder  were 
renewing  old  acquaintance. 

While  he  waited  the  full  horror  of  his  dilemma  came 
over  him.  Kedzie  would  undoubtedly  sue  him  for 
divorce.  If  he  lost,  Charity  would  be  publicly  disgraced. 
If  he  won,  he  would  be  tied  to  Kedzie  for  life. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A  QUICK  temper  is  an  excellent  friend  for  bolstering 
/\  up  an  ailing  conscience,  especially  if  itself  is  bolstered 
by  an  inability  to  see  the  point  of  view  of  the  other  party 
to  a  conflict. 

Kedzie's  wrath  at  Charity  justified  to  Kedzie  any 
cruelty,  especially  as  Kedzie  was  all  harrowed  up  by  the 
fear  of  losing  the  Marquess  of  Strathdene.  And  Kedzie 
loved  Strathdene  as  much  as  she  could  ever  love  anybody. 

For  one  thing  Strathdene  was  fiercely  jealous  of  her — 
and  the  poor  child  had  been  simply  famished  for  a  little 
jealousy.  Her  first  husband  had  hardly  known  what  the 
word  meant.  Before  their  marriage  Gilfoyle  had  per- 
mitted her  to  dance  the  Greek  dances  without  paying  her 
the  compliment  of  a  beating.  After  their  marriage  he  had 
gone  to  Chicago  to  earn  a  living  and  left  her  alone  in 
New  York  City  where  there  were  millions  of  rivals. 

Her  second  husband  had  been  very  philosophical  about 
her  career  and  had  taken  the  news  of  her  previous  mar- 
riage with  disgusting  stoicism.  Finally  he  had  gone  to 
the  Mexican  Border  for  an  indefinite  stay,  leaving  her  to 
her  own  devices  and  the  devices  of  any  man  who  came 
along.  It  was  too  much  like  leaving  a  diamond  outdoors : 
it  cheapened  the  diamond. 

But  Strathdene — ah,  Strathdene!  He  turned  blue  at 
the  mention  of  Kedzie's  husband.  When  Jim  came  back 
from  Texas  and  Kedzie  had  to  be  polite  to  him  Strathdene 
almost  had  hydrophobia.  He  accused  Kedzie  of  act- 
ually welcoming  Jim.  He  charged  her  with  polyandry. 
He  threatened  to  shoot  her  and  her  husband  and  himself. 

562 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

He  comported  himself  unlike  any  traditional  Englishman 
of  literature.  He  was,  in  fact,  himself  and  what  he  did 
was  like  him.  He  was  a  born  aviator.  His  heart  was 
used  to  racing  at  unheard-of  speeds.  He  could  sustain 
superhuman  exaltations  and  depressions. 

Being  in  love  with  him  was  like  going  up  in  an  air- 
ship with  him,  which  was  one  of  Kedzie's  ambitions 
for  the  future.  She  dreamed  of  a  third  honeymoon 
in  excelsis. 

Strathdene  told  her  that  if  she  ever  looked  at  another 
man  after  she  married  him  he  would  take  her  up  ten 
thousand  feet  in  the  clouds,  set  his  airship  on  fire,  and  drop 
with  her  as  one  cinder  into  the  ocean.  What  handsomer 
tribute  could  any  woman  ask  of  a  man  ?  He  was  a  lover 
worth  fighting  for. 

But  she  had  felt  uncertain  of  winning  him  till  that 
wonderful  morning  when  Jim  did  not  come  back  home. 
She  woke  up  early  all  by  herself  and  heard  the  valet 
answer  Jim's  call  from  Viewcrest. 

She  had  made  a  friend  of  Dallam  by  her  flirtation 
with  the  nobility.  The  poor  fellow  had  suffered  tortures 
from  the  degradation  of  his  master's  alliance  with  a 
commoner  like  Kedzie  until  Kedzie  developed  her  alli- 
ance with  the  Marquess.  Then  his  valetic  soul  expanded 
again. 

He  looked  upon  her  as  his  salvation. 

Over  the  telephone  she  heard  him  now  promising  Jim 
that  he  would  not  tell  Kedzie.  If  Jim's  old  valet,  Jules, 
had  not  gone  to  France  and  his  death  he  would  have  saved 
Jim  from  infernal  distresses,  but  this  substitute  had  a 
malignant  interest  in  his  master's  confusion.  Dallam 
proceeded  forthwith  to  rap  at  Mrs.  Dyckman's  door  and 
spoke  through  it,  deferentially: 

"Beg  pardon,  ma'am,  but  could  I  have  a  word?" 

Kedzie  wrapped  herself  in  a  bath-robe  and  opened  the 
door  a  chink  to  hear  the  rest  of  what  she  had  heard  in 
part.  The  valet  had  no  collar  on  and  his  overnight 

563 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

beard  not  off,  and  he,  too,  was  in  a  bath-robe.  Man  and 
mistress  stood  there  like  genius  and  madness,  "and  thin 
partitions  did  their  bounds  divide." 

"Very  sorry  to  trouble  you,  ma'am,"  he  said,  "but  I'm 
compelled  to.  The  master  has  just  telephoned  me  that 
his  car  broke  down  at  the  Viewcrest  Inn  out  Tiverton 
way,  and  he  wants  his  morning  clothes,  and  also — if  you'll 
pardon  me,  ma'am — he  instructed  me  to  send  him  a  long 
motor-coat  of  yours  and  a  large  hat  and  your  limousine. 
I  was  directed  not  to — ahem — to  trouble  you  about  it, 
ma'am,  but  I  'ardly  dared." 

He  helped  her  out  so  perfectly  that  she  had  no  need  to 
say  anything  more  than,  "Quite  right." 

She  was  glad  that  the  door  screened  her  from  observa- 
tion, for  she  went  through  a  crisis  of  emotions,  wrath 
and  disgust  at  Jim's  perfidy  versus  ecstasy  and  gratitude 
to  him  for  it. 

She  beat  her  breast  with  her  hand  as  if  to  keep  her 
trembling  heart  from  turning  a  somersault  into  her 
mouth.  Then  she  spoke  with  a  calm  that  showed  how 
far  she  had  traveled  in  self-control. 

"Very  good.  You  were  quite  right.  Call  the  chauffeur 
and  tell  him  to  bring  round  my  closed  car.  Then  send 
me  my  maid  and  have  the  cook  get  me  some  coffee.  Then 
you  may  telephone  my  mother  and  father  and  ask  them 
to  come  over  at  once.  Please  send  my  car  for  them. 
You  might  have  coffee  for  them  also.  For  we'll  all  be 
riding  out  to — did  you  say  Viewcrest  Inn?" 

"Yes,  ma'am.     Very  good,  ma'am.     Thank  you!" 

He  went  away  thinking  to  himself.  He  thought  in 
cockney:  "My  Gawd!  w'at  a  milit'ry  genius!  She  dic- 
tites  a  horder  loike  a  Proosian  general.  I'm  beginnin'  to 
fink  she's  gowing  to  do  milord  the  mokkis  prahd.  There's 
no  daht  abaht  it.  Stroike  me,  if  there  is." 

By  the  time  Kedzie  was  dressed  and  coffeed  her  panicky 
father  and  mother  were  collected  and  fed,  and  she  had 
selected  her  best  motor-coat  for  the  shroud  of  whatever 

564 


WE   CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

woman  it  was  at  Viewcrest.     She  dared  not  dream  it  was 
Charity. 

She  had  time  enough  to  tell  her  parents  all  there  was 
to  tell  on  the  voyage,  but  she  had  no  idea  that  her  limousine 
was  taking  her  to  the  very  inn  that  Strathdene  had  lured 
her  to  on  that  night  when  he  tested  her  worthiness  of 
his  respect. 

It  had  been  dark  on  that  occasion  and  she  had  been 
in  such  a  chaos  that  she  had  paid  no  heed  to  the  name  of 
the  place  or  the  dark  roads  leading  thither. 

She  almost  swooned  when  she  reached  the  Viewcrest 
Inn  and  found  herself  confronted  by  Skip  Magruder. 
And  so  did  Skip.  He  had  not  recognized  the  back  of  her 
head  before,  but  her  face  smote  him  now.  There  was  no 
escaping  him.  Her  beauty  was  enriched  by  her  costume 
and  her  mien  was  ripened  by  experience,  but  she  was  un- 
forgetably  herself.  He  was  still  a  waiter,  and  the  apron 
he  had  on  and  the  napkin  he  clutched  might  have  been 
the  same  one  he  had  when  she  first  saw  him. 

When  he  saw  her  now  again  he  gasped  the  name  he  had 
known  her  by:  "Anitar!  Anitar  Adair!  Well,  I'll 
be—" 

Then  his  face  darkened  with  the  memory  of  disprized 
love.  He  recalled  the  cruel  answer,  "Nothing  doing," 
that  she  had  indorsed  on  the  stage-door  letter  he  sent 
her  long  ago. 

But  the  military  genius  that  had  guided  Kedzie  this 
morning  inspired  her  still.  She  was  not  going  to  lose  her 
victory  for  any  flank  attack  from  an  ally  in  ambush. 
She  sent  out  a  flag  of  truce. 

"Why,  Skip!"  she  cried.  "  Dear  old  Skip!  I  want  you 
to  meet  my  father  and  mother.  Mr.  Magruder  was  ter- 
ribly kind  to  me  when  I  was  alone  and  friendless  in  New 
York." 

Mrs.  Thropp  had  outgrown  waiters  and  even  Adna 
regretted  the  reversion  to  Nimrim  that  led  him  to  shake 
hands  and  say,  "Please  to  meecher." 

565 


WE   CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

The  stupefied  proprietor  of  the  inn  was  begging  for 
explanations  of  this  unheard-of  colloquy,  but  Skip  flicked 
him  away  with  his  napkin  as  if  he  were  a  bluebottle  fly 
and  motioned  Kedzie  to  a  comer  of  the  office.  Kedzie 
explained,  breathlessly: 

"Skip,  I'm  in  terrible  trouble,  and  I'm  so  glad  to 
find  you  here,  for  you  never  failed  me.  I  was  very  rude 
to  you  when  you  sent  me  that  note,  but  I — I  was  engaged 
to  be  married  at  the  time  and  I  didn't  think  it  proper 
to  see  anybody.  And — well,  I'm  getting  my  punishment 
now,  for  my  husband  is  here  with  a  strange  woman — 
and — oh,  it's  terrible,  Skip!  My  heart  is  broken,  but 
you've  got  to  help  me.  I  know  I  can  rely  on  you,  can't  I, 
dear  old  Skip?" 

The  girl  was  so  efficient  that  she  almost  deserved  her 
success.  It  cost  her  something,  though,  to  beguile  a 
waiter  with  intimate  appeals  that  she  might  earn  a  title. 
But  then  in  time  of  war  no  ally  is  to  be  scorned  and  the 
lowliest  recruit  is  worth  enlisting.  A  Christian  can 
piously  engage  a  Turk  to  help  him  whip  another  Christian. 

When  Kedzie  pulled  out  the  tremolo  stop  and  looked  up, 
big-eyed,  and  pouted  at  him,  Skip  was  hers. 

"Your  husband,  Anitar?  Your  husband  here?  Why, 
the  low-life  hound!  I'll  go  up  and  kill  him  for  you  if  you 
want  me  to." 

Kedzie  explained  that  she  didn't  want  to  get  her  dear 
Skip  into  any  trouble,  but  she  did  want  his  help.  Skip 
found  her  a  good  boarding-place  the  first  time  he  met  her, 
and  now  she  had  to  dupe  him  into  securing  her  furnished 
rooms  and  board  in  a  castle.  She  may  have  rather  en- 
couraged him  to  imagine  that  once  she  was  free  from  Jim 
she  would  listen  once  more  to  Skip.  But  there  is  no 
evidence  on  that  point  and  he  must  have  felt  a  certain 
awe  of  her.  His  pretty  duckling  had  become  so  gorgeous 
a  swan. 

Her  parley  with  Skip  had  delayed  her  march  up-stairs 
to  the  attack,  but  Jim  and  Charity  could  only  wait  in 

566 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

befuddled  suspense,  unwilling  and  afraid  to  attempt  a 
flight 

Kedzie  went  up-stairs  at  last,  backed  by  her  father 
and  mother  and  Skip  and  the  chauffeur  with  the  suit-case 
of  Jim's  clothes.  Kedzie  was  dazed  at  the  sight  of  Charity. 

But  there  was  no  need  of  any  oration. 

After  a  little  sniffing  and  nodding  of  the  head  she  spoke : 

"Well,  I  thought  as  much!  Jim,  you  telephoned  for 
some  things  of  mine  and  of  yours.  Here  they*  are. 
There's  a  can  of  gasolene  down-stairs  for  you.  Here's 
your  suit-case,  and  the  coat  and  hat  for  Mrs.  Cheever. 
I  presume  you  will  go  back  in  your  own  car." 

Jim  nodded. 

"Then  we  needn't  keep  you  any  longer.  Mr.  McNiven 
is  your  lawyer  still,  I  suppose.  I'll  send  my  lawyer  to 
him.  .  Come  along,  mother — and  father." 

She  led  her  little  cohort  down-stairs  and  bade  Skip  a 
very  cordial  au  revoir. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Dyckman  divorce  farce  might  have  been  as 
1  politely  performed  as  I' affaire  Cheever — or  even  more 
so  than  that,  since  practice  makes  perfect.  At  least  a 
temporary  secrecy  could  have  been  secured  with  leisureli- 
ness  by  a  residence  in  another  State. 

But  Kedzie  felt  as  Zada  did,  that  she  simply  could  not 
wait,  though  her  reason  was  well  to  the  opposite.  Zada 
had  been  afraid  that  a  child  would  arrive  before  the 
divorce,  but  Kedzie  that  a  gentleman  would  depart. 

Strathdene  was  straining  at  the  anchor  like  one  of  his 
own  biplanes  with  the  wind  nudging  its  wings.  In  Europe 
they  were  shooting  down  airships  by  the  score  nearly  every 
day  and  Strathdene  wanted  to  go  back.  "It's  not  fair 
to  the  Huns,"  he  said.  "They  haven't  had  a  pot-shot 
at  me  for  so  long  they'll  forget  I  was  ever  over.  And 
some  of  those  men  that  were  corporals  when  I  made  my 
Ace,  are  Aces  now  as  well  and  they're  crawling  up  on  my 
score!  I'll  have  to  fly  all  the  time  to  catch  up." 

But  he  wanted  to  take  with  him  his  beauty.  He  was 
jealous  of  Uncle  Sam  and  afraid  to  trust  Kedzie  to  him. 
The  more  inconvenient  she  became  to  him  the  more 
determined  he  grew  to  overcome  the  obstacles  to  her 
possession. 

He  abominated  the  necessity  of  taking  his  bride  through 
the  side  door  of  the  court-house  to  the  altar,  but  he  would 
not  give  her  up.  It  looked,  however,  as  if  he  would  have 
to.  And  then  he  received  mysteriously  an  assignment  to 
the  inspection  of  flying-machines  purchased  in  the  Amer- 

568 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

ican  market.  Kedzie  told  him  that  it  was  a  Heaven-sent 
answer  to  her  prayers,  and  he  believed  it. 

But  it  was  his  poor  mother's  work;  she  had  written  to  a 
friend  in  the  British  Embassy  imploring  him  to  keep  her 
precious  boy  out  of  France  as  long  as  possible.  Hecatombs 
of  gallant  young  lords  were  being  butchered  and  she  had 
lost  a  son,  two  brothers,  a  nephew,  and  unnumbered 
friends.  The  whole  nobility  of  Europe  was  as  deep  in 
mourning  as  all  the  other  grades  of  prestige.  She  wanted 
a  brief  respite  from  terror.  She  did  not  know  till  later 
to  what  further  risks  she  was  exposing  her  boy. 

Kedzie  was  grimly  resolute  about  getting  her  freedom 
from  Jim  in  order  to  transfer  it  to  Strathdene.  She 
planned  to  manage  it  quietly  for  the  sake  of  her  own 
future.  But  a  sickening  mess  was  made  of  it.  For 
Kedzie  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  too,  too  conscientious 
lawyer.  It  is  impossible  to  be  loyal  in  all  directions,  and 
young  Mr.  Anson  Beattie  was  loyal  first  to  his  wife  and 
children,  whom  he  loved  devotedly.  They  needed  money 
and  clients  came  slowly  to  him. 

His  wife  had  relatives  in  Newport  and  they  chanced  to 
be  visiting  there.  The  relatives  were  shopkeepers,  to 
whom  Pet  Bettany  owed  much  money.  That  was  how 
Kedzie  came  to  consult  Mr.  Beattie.  Kedzie  telephoned 
Pet  the  moment  she  got  back  from  the  Viewcrest  Inn,  and 
Pet  told  her  of  Beattie. 

When  Kedzie  drifted  into  his  ken  with  a  word  of  intro- 
duction from  Pet  Bettany  he  hailed  her  as  a  Heaven-sent 
messenger.  She  brought  him  advertisement,  and  big 
fees  on  a  platter. 

The  very  name  of  Dyckman  was  incense  and  myrrh. 
Mr.  Beattie  smelled  gold.  When  Kedzie  poured  out  her 
story  and  explained  that  the  famous  Mrs.  Charity  Cheever 
was  the  wreckress  of  her  home  Mr.  Beattie  saw  head-lines 
everywhere. 

If  the  Dyckmans  had  been  a  humble  couple  he  would 
have  tried  to  reconcile  them,  perhaps,  or  he  would  have 

569 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

separated  them  with  little  noise.  But  it  was  noise  he 
wanted.  The  longer  and  louder  the  trial  the  more  free 
space  Mr.  Beattie  would  get. 

"It  Pays  to  Advertise"  is  a  necessary  motto  for  all 
professions.  The  lawyer  is  advertised  by  his  hating  ene- 
mies, Beattie  said  to  himself,  and  to  his  ecstatic  wife 
when  he  went  to  her  room  after  Kedzie  left.  His  wife 
would  never  have  taken  a  divorce  if  divorces  were  dis- 
tributed at  every  door  like  handbills.  Mr.  Beattie  said 
to  Mrs.  Beattie: 

"  Soul  o'  my  soul,  I'm  going  to  handle  this  case  in  such 
a  way  that  it  will  stir  up  a  smell  from  here  to  California. 
I'll  get  that  little  woman  an  alimony  that  will  break  all 
known  records  and  I'll  take  a  percentage  of  the  gate 
receipts  as  they  come  in.  I  wouldn't  trust  my  little  client 
a  foot  away." 

"Don't  trust  her  too  close,  either,"  said  his  devoted 
spouse,  who  was  just  jealous  enough  to  be  remembered  in 
time  of  stress. 

Beattie  was  the  sort  of  lawyer  one  reads  about  oftener 
than  one  meets,  and  he  wanted  to  be  read  about.  He  had 
the  almost  necessary  lawyer  gift  of  beginning  to  hate  the 
opposition  as  soon  as  he  learned  what  it  was.  If  Jim 
had  engaged  him  he  would  have  hated  Kedzie  with  re- 
ligious ardor.  Kedzie  engaged  him;  so  he  abominated 
Jim  and  everybody  and  everything  associated  with  him 
from  his  name  to  his  scarf-pin. 

He  warned  Kedzie  not  to  spend  an  hour  under  Jim 
Dyckman's  roof,  lest  she  seem  to  condone  what  she  dis- 
covered. He  advised  her  to  disappear  till  Beattie  was 
ready  to  strike. 

That  was  the  reason  why  there  was  no  compromise,  no 
concession,  no  politeness  in  the  divorce.  If  collusion  is 
vicious  this  case  was  certainly  pure  of  it. 

Jim  was  not  permitted  a  quiet  talk  with  Kedzie  from 
the  moment  she  found  him  at  the  Viewcrest  Inn.  Her 
arrival  there  plus  her  family  had  thrown  him  into  a 

570 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

stupor.  It  was  a  situation  for  a  genius  to  handle,  since 
the  honester  a  man  is  the  more  he  is  confused  at  being 
found  in  a  situation  that  looks  dishonest.  Jim  was  never 
less  a  genius  than  then.  Even  Charity,  who  usually  found 
a  word  when  a  word  was  needed,  said  not  one.  What 
could  she  say  ?  Kedzie  ignored  her,  accused  her  of  nothing, 
and  did  not  linger. 

When  Jim  and  Charity,  left  alone  together  again,  looked 
at  each  other  they  were  too  disgusted  to  regret  that  they 
had  not  been  as  guilty  as  they  looked.  Life  had  the 
jaundice  in  their  eyes. 

But  they  had  to  get  back  to  the  world  by  way  of  ma- 
terial things.  Jim  had  to  change  his  evening  clothes. 
He  asked  Charity  to  wait  in  the  office  below.  He  pointed 
to  the  motor-coat  and  hat  that  Kedzie  had  brought  and 
tossed  on  a  lounge. 

Charity  recoiled  from  wearing  Kedzie  s  cast-off  clothes 
or  from  disguising  as  Jim's  wife,  but  her  downcast  eyes 
revealed  her  bare  shoulders  and  arms  and  her  delicate 
evening  gown.  They  had  been  exquisitely  appropriate 
to  night  and  night  lights,  but  they  were  ghastly  in  the 
day. 

She  put  on  Kedzie's  mantle;  it  blistered  her  like  the 
mantle  Medea  sent  to  her  successor  in  her  husband's  love. 
She  sat  in  the  office  and  some  of  the  guests  passed  through. 
She  could  see  that  they  took  her  to  be  one  of  their  sort, 
and  shocks  of  red  and  white  alternated  through  her  skin. 

When  Jim  was  ready  he  came  down  with  his  evening 
clothes  in  the  suit-case.  The  baggage  was  the  final  con- 
vincing touch.  He  picked  up  the  gasolene-can  and  toted 
it  that  weary  mile.  One  of  the  hotel  servants  offered  to 
carry  it,  but  Jim  was  in  no  mood  for  company.  There  are 
things  that  the  wealthiest  man  does  not  want  to  have 
done  for  him. 

They  found  the  car  studded  with  pools  of  water  from  the 
rain,  and  Charity  shook  out  the  cushions  while  Jim  filled 
up  the  tank. 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Quite  domestic,"  said  Charity,  in  the  last  dregs  of 
bitterness. 

Jim  did  not  answer.  He  flung  the  can  over  into  a  field 
and  hopped  into  the  car.  He  regretted  that  he  had  no 
spurs  to  dig  into  its  sides,  no  curb  bit  to  jerk.  He  owed 
his  destruction  to  that  car.  For  want  of  gasolene,  the  car 
was  lost;  for  want  of  the  car,  a  reputation  was  lost. 

He  thought  with  frenzy  as  he  drove.  He  had  little 
imagination,  but  it  did  not  require  an  expert  dreamer  to 
foresee  dire  possibilities  ahead.  He  was  so  sorry  for 
Charity  that  he  could  have  wept.  He  wanted  to  enfold 
her  in  his  arms  and  promise  her  security.  He  wanted  to 
stand  in  front  of  her  and  take  in  his  own  breast  all  the 
arrows  of  scorn  that  might  shower  upon  her. 

But  the  nearest  approach  to  protection  in  his  power  lay 
along  the  lines  of  appearing  to  be  indifferent  to  her.  He 
had  not  been  told  of  Kedzie's  infatuation  for  Strathdene 
and  he  had  not  suspected  it. 

Charity  was  tempted  to  refer  to  it,  but  she  felt  that  it 
would  be  contemptibly  petty  at  the  moment.  So  Jim 
was  permitted  to  hope  that  he  could  find  Kedzie,  throw 
himself  on  her  mercy  and  implore  her  to  believe  in  his 
innocence.  It  was  a  sickly  hope,  and  his  heart  rilled  with 
gall  and  with  hatred  of  Kedzie  and  all  she  had  brought 
on  him. 

He  reached  Newport  with  a  terrific  speed,  and  left 
Charity  at  Mrs.  Noxon's  to  make  her  own  explanations. 
Mrs.  Noxon  had  defended  Charity  against  gossip  once 
before,  but  to  defend  her  against  appearances  was  too 
much  to  ask. 

"Well-behaved  people,"  she  told  Charity,  "do  not 
have  appearances." 

She  was  so  cold  that  Charity  froze  also,  and  set  her 
maid  to  packing.  Mrs.  Noxon's  frigidity  was  a  terrify- 
ing example  of  what  she  was  to  expect.  She  returned  to 
New  York  on  the  first  train.  Jim  was  on  it,  too. 

He  had  sped  home,  expecting  to  find  Kedzie.  She  was 

572 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

gone  and  none  of  the  servants  knew  where.  If  he  had 
found  her  in  the  ferocious  humor  he  had  arrived  at  he 
might  have  given  her  the  sort  of  divorce  popular  in  divorce- 
less  countries,  where  they  annul  the  wife  instead  of  the 
marriage.  He  might  have  sent  Kedzie  to  the  realm  where 
there  is  neither  marrying  nor  giving  in  marriage — which 
should  sare  a  heap  of  trouble. 

Jim  fancied  that  Kedzie  must  have  taken  the  tram  to 
New  York,  since  she  spoke  of  sending  her  lawyer  to 
McNiven.  It  did  not  occur  to  him  that  she  could  find 
a  New  York  lawyer  in  Newport. 

He  met  Charity,  and  not  Kedzie,  on  the  train.  That 
made  bad  look  worse.  But  it  gave  Jim  and  Charity  an 
opportunity  to  face  the  calamity  that  was  impending. 
Jim  tried  to  reassure  Charity  that  he  would  keep  her 
from  suffering  any  public  harm.  The  mere  thought  of 
her  liability  to  notoriety,  the  realization  that  her  long  life 
of  decency  and  devotion  were  at  the  mercy  of  the  whim 
of  a  woman  like  Kedzie,  drove  her  frantic. 

She  begged  Jim  to  leave  her  t&  her  thoughts  and  he 
went  away  to  the  purgatory  of  his  own.  Reaching  New 
York,  he  returned  to  Charity  to  offer  his  escort  to  her 
home.  She  broke  out,  petulantly: 

"Don't  take  me  any  more  places,  Jim,  I  beg  you!" 

"Forgive  me,"  he  mumbled,  and  relieved  her  of  his 
compromising  chivalry. 

They  went  to  their  homes  in  separate  taxicabs.  Jim 
made  haste  to  his  apartment.  Kedzie  was  not  there 
and  had  not  been  heard  from. 

Late  as  it  was,  he  set  out  on  a  telephone  chase  for 
McNiven  and  dragged  him  to  a  conference.  It  was  mid- 
night and  Jim  was  haggard  with  excitement. 

There  are  two  people  at  least  to  whom  a  wise  man  tells 
the  truth — his  doctor  and  his  lawyer.  Neither  of  them 
has  many  illusions  left,  but  both  usually  know  fact  when 
they  get  a  chance  to  face  it. 

Jim  had  nothing  to  conceal  from  McNiven  and  his 

573 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

innocence  transpired  through  all  his  bewilderment.  He 
told  just  what  had  happened  in  its  farcical-funeral  details. 
McNiven  did  not  smile.  Jim  finished  with  all  his  energy: 

"Sandy,  you  know  that  Charity  is  the  whitest  woman 
on  earth,  a  saint  if  ever  there  was  a  saint.  She's  the  one 
that's  got  to  be  protected.  Not  a  breath  of  her  name 
must  come  out.  If  it  takes  the  last  cent  I've  got  and  dad's 
got  I  want  you  to  buy  off  that  wife  of  mine.  You  warned 
me  against  marrying  her,  and  I  wish  to  God  I'd  listened 
to  you.  I'm  not  blaming  her  for  being  suspicious,  but 
I  can't  let  her  smash  Charity.  I'll  protect  Charity  if  I 
have  to  build  a  wall  of  solid  gold  around  her." 

McNiven  tried  to  quiet  him.  He  saw  no  reason  for 
alarm.  "You  don't  have  to  urge  me  to  protect  Charity," 
he  said.  "She's  an  angel  as  well  as  my  client.  All  you 
need  is  a  little  sleep.  Go  to  bed  and  don't  worry.  Re- 
member, there  never  was  a  storm  so  big  that  it  didn't  blow 
over." 

"Yes,  but  what  does  it  blow  over  before  it  blows  over?" 
said  Jim. 

"You're  talking  in  your  sleep  already.  Good  night," 
said  McNiven. 


'"PHE  next  morning  McNiven  found  Charity  at  his 
1  office  when  he  arrived.  She  had  evidently  been 
awake  all  night. 

She  told  McNiven  a  story  that  agreed  in  the  essentials 
with  Jim's  except  that  she  made  herself  out  the  fool  where 
he  had  blamed  himself.  McNiven  had  no  success  in  try- 
ing to  quiet  her  with  soothing  promises  of  a  tame  con- 
clusion. She  dreaded  Kedzie. 

"If  it  were  just  an  outburst  of  jealousy,"  she  said, 
"you  might  talk  to  the  woman.  But  she's  not  jealous  of 
her  husband.  She  was  as  cool  as  a  cucumber  when  she 
found  us  together.  She  was  glad  of  it,  because  she  had 
got  a  way  to  get  her  Marquess  now.  She's  ambitious  and 
Lady  Macbeth  couldn't  outdo  her." 

She  told  McNiven  what  she  had  not  had  the  heart  to 
tell  Jim  about  Strathdene.  It  worried  him  more  than  he 
admitted.  While  he  meditated  on  a  measure  to  meet 
this  sort  of  attack,  Charity  suggested  one.  It  was 
drastic,  but  she  was  desperate.  She  proposed  the  threat 
of  a  countercharge  against  Kedzie. 

McNiven  shook  his  head  and  made  strange  noises  in  his 
pipe.  He  asked  for  evidence  against  Kedzie.  Charity 
could  only  quote  the  general  opinion. 

McNiven  said:  "No.  You  allege  innocence  on  your 
part  in  spite  of  apj^earances  which  you  admit  are  almost 
conclusive.  You  can  hardly  claim  that  more  innocent 
appearances  on  her  part  prove  that  she  is  guilty.  Besides, 
we  don't  want  to  stir  up  any  more  sediment.  We'll  do 
everything  on  the  Q.  T.  Money  talks,  and  the  little  lady 

575 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

is  not  deaf.  My  legal  advice  to  you  is,  'Don't  fret,'  and 
my  medical  advice  is,  'Go  to  bed  and  stay  there  till  I 
send  you  word  that  it's  all  over.'  Remember  one 
thing,  there  never  was  a  storm  so  big  that  it  didn't 
blow  over." 

Charity  was  not  in  the  least  quieted.  His  sedative 
only  annoyed  her  ragged  nerves. 

"Keep  my  name  clean,"  she  whispered. 

As  she  rode  home  in  a  taxicab  that  was  like  a  refrigerator 
she  passed  in  the  Fifth  Avenue  melee  Zada  L'Etoile,  now 
Mrs.  Cheever,  with  the  tiny  little  Cheever  like  a  princelet 
asleep  at  her  breast,  hiding  with  its  pink  head  the  letter 
"A"  that  had  grown  there. 

People  of  cautious  respectability  spoke  to  Zada  now 
with  amiable  respect,  and  murmured: 

"Funny  thing!  She's  made  a  man  of  that  good-for- 
nothing  Peter  Cheever.  They're  as  happy  and  as  thick 
as  thieves." 

Charity  had  heard  this  saying,  and  she  dreaded  to 
realize  that  perhaps  in  a  few  days  respectable  people 
would  be  turning  from  herself,  not  seeing  her,  or  storing 
up  credit  by  snubbing  her  and  muttering: 

"No  wonder  poor  Cheever  couldn't  get  along  with  her. 
He  took  the  blame  like  a  gentleman,  and  now  she's  found 
out.  She  was  a  sly  one,  but  you  can't  fool  all  the  people 
all  the  time." 

Charity  had  not  been  gone  from  McNiven's  office  long 
before  a  lawyer's  clerk  arrived  bearing  the  papers  for  a 
divorce  on  statutory  grounds  in  the  case  of  Dyckman 
versus  Dyckman,  Mrs.  Charity  C.  Cheever,  co-respondent, 
Anson  Beattie  counsel  for  plaintiff. 

McNiven  went  after  Beattie  at  once  and  proposed  a 
quiet  treaty  and  a  settlement  out  of  court.  Beattie 
grinned  so  odiously  that  McNiven  had  to  say: 

"Oh,  I  remember  you.  You  used  to  be  an  ambulance- 
chaser.  What  are  you  after  now — a  little  dirty  adver- 
tising?" 

576 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

' '  What  are  you  after ? ' '  said  Beattie.  ' '  A  little  collusive 
juggling  with  the  Seventh  Commandment?" 

"The  one  against  false  witness  is  the  Ninth,"  said 
McNiven.  "But  let's  have  a  conference.  This  war  in 
Europe  might  have  been  avoided  by  a  little  heart-to-heart 
talk  beforehand.  Let's  profit  by  the  lesson." 

Beattie  consented  to  this,  and  promised  to  arrange  it 
on  condition  that  in  the  mean  while  McNiven  would  accept 
service  for  his  client.  This  was  done,  and  Beattie  left. 

He  saw  his  great  publicity  campaign  being  thwarted, 
and  changed  his  mind.  He  hankered  for  fame  more  than 
gold.  He  filed  the  papers  and  meditated.  He  did  not 
know  how  much  or  how  little  Kedzie  loved  her  husband, 
and  she  had  told  him  nothing  of  Strathdene.  He  feared 
that  a  compromise  might  be  patched  up  and  perhaps  a 
reconciliation  effected.  He  had  had  women  come  to  him 
imploring  a  divorce  from  their  abominable  husbands  only 
to  see  the  couple  link  up  again,  kiss  and  make  up,  and  call 
him  an  abominable  villain  for  trying  to  part  them. 

After  some  earnest  consideration  of  the  right  of  his  own 
career  and  his  family  to  the  full  profit  of  this  windfall,  he 
looked  up  a  reporter  and  through  him  a  group  of  reporters 
and  promised  them  a  peep  at  something  interesting. 

He  had  the  privilege  of  calling  for  the  papers  from  the 
clerk  of  the  court,  so  he  took  them  out  and  permitted  the 
reporters  to  glance  within  and  make  note  of  the  contents. 

Late  editions  of  the  evening  papers  gave  the  Dyckman 
divorce  a  fanfare  rivaling  the  evidence  that  the  Germans 
were  about  to  resume  their  unrestricted  submarine 
Schrecklichkcit. 

If  the  spoken  word  is  impossible  to  recall,  how  much 
more  irretrievable  the  word  that  is  printed  in  millions  of 
newspapers.  The  name  of  Dyckman  was  a  household 
word.  It  resounded  now  in  every  household  throughout 
the  country,  and  across  the  sea,  where  the  name  had  become 
familiar  in  all  the  nations  from  the  big  financial  dealings 
of  the  elder  Dyckman  as  a  banker  for  the  Allies. 
37  577 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Reporters  played  about  Jim  Dyckman  that  night  as  if 
they  were  banderilleros  and  he  a  raging  bull.  He  fought 
them  with  the  same  success. 

They  tried  to  find  Charity,  but  she  was  in  the  doctor's 
care — actually.  The  doctor  himself  dismissed  the  re- 
porters. He  called  them  "ghouls,"  which  did  not  sweeten 
their  hearts  toward  his  patient. 

The  next  day  there  was  probably  not  a  morning  paper 
in  the  United  States  in  any  language  that  failed  to  star 
the  news  that  Mrs.  Dyckman  had  found  her  husband's 
relations  with  Mrs.  Cheever  intolerable. 

That  morning  saw  the  conference  in  McNiven's  office, 
as  promised  by  Beattie.  But  Kedzie  did  not  appear;  she 
had  vanished  to  some  place  where  she  could  not  be  found 
by  anybody  except  the  man  who  wrote  her  highly  imagina- 
tive affidavits  for  her  and  the  notary  public  who  attested 
her  signature. 

At  the  conference  with  Jim,  Kedzie  was  represented  by 
counsel,  also  by  father.  Jim  called  the  lawyer  Beattie 
some  hard  old  Anglo-Saxon  names,  and  told  him  that  if 
he  were  a  little  bigger  he  would  give  him  the  beating 
that  was  coming  to  him.  Then  he  turned  to  Kedzie 's 
father. 

"  Mr.  Thropp,"  he  pleaded,  "you  and  I  have  always  got 
along  all  right.  You  know  I've  tried  to  do  the  right  thing 
by  your  daughter.  I'm  ready  to  now.  She's  too  decent  a 
girl  to  have  done  this  thing  on  her  own.  This  is  the  work 
of  that  rotten  skunk  of  a  lawyer — I  apologize  to  the  other 
skunks  and  the  real  lawyers.  She  has  done  a  frightful 
injustice  to  the  best  woman  on  earth.  She  can  never  undo 
it,  but  surely  she  doesn't  want  to  do  any  more.  She's 
through  with  me,  I  suppose,  but  we  ought  to  be  able  to 
clean  up  this  affair  respectably  and  quietly  and  not  in  the 
front  show-window  of  all  the  damned  newspapers  in  the 
world. 

"Can't  you  and  I  make  a  little  quiet  gentleman's 
agreement  to  withdraw  the  charge  and  let  the  divorce  go 

578  ' 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

through  decently?  I'll  make  any  settlement  on  your 
daughter  that  she  wants." 

Adna  pondered  aloud,  his  claim-agent  instincts  alert: 
"Settlement,  eh?  What  might  you  call  settlement?" 

"Whatever  you'd  consider  fair.  How  much  would  you 
say  was  right?" 

Adna  filled  his  lungs  and  mouthed  the  deliciously  liquid 
word  as  if  it  were  a  veritable  aurunt  potabile: 

"Millions!" 

' '  What !' '  Jim  gasped. 

Adna  fairly  gargled  it  again: 

"Millillions!" 

The  greed  in  the  old  man's  eyes  shot  Dyckman's  eyes 
with  blood.  He  snarled: 

"So  it's  the  plain  old  blackmail,  eh?  Well,  you  can  go 
plumb  to  hell!" 

"All  right,"  said  Adna,  felicitously,  "but  we  won't  go 
alone.  I  and  daughter  will  have  comp'ny.  Come  on, 
Mr.  Beattie." 

After  they  had  gone  Jim  realized  that  his  hatred  of 
being  gouged  had  involved  Charity's  priceless  reputation. 
He  told  McNiven  to  recall  Beattie,  but  Charity  herself 
appeared  in  a  new  and  militant  humor. 

The  first  realization  that  her  good  name  was  gone  had 
crushed  her.  She  had  built  it  up  like  a  mansion,  adding  a 
white  stone  day  by  day.  When  it  fell  about  her  in  ruins 
her  soul  had  swooned  with  the  disaster. 

After  a  night  and  a  day  of  groveling  terror  she  had  re- 
captured the  valor  that  makes  and  keeps  a  woman  good, 
and  she  leaped  from  her  sick  bed  and  her  sick  soul  into 
an  armor  of  rage. 

She  burst  in  on  McNiven  and  Jim  and  demanded  a 
share  in  the  battle.  When  Jim  told  her  of  his  latest 
blunder  she  spoke  up,  stoutly: 

"You  did  the  right  thing.  To  try  to  buy  them  off 
would  be  to  confess  guilt.  The  damage  is  done.  The 
whole  world  has  read  the  lie.  Now  we'll  make  it  read  the 

579 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

truth.  There  must  be  some  way  for  me  to  defend  my 
name,  and  I  want  to  know  what  it  is." 

McNiven  told  her  that  the  law  allowed  her  to  enter  the 
case  and  seek  vindication,  but  he  advised  her  against  it. 
She  thanked  him  for  the  information  and  rejected  the 
advice.  She  was  gray  with  battle-ardor  and  her  very  nos- 
trils were  fierce. 

"I'm  sorry  to  do  anything  to  interfere  with  your 
welfare,  Jim,  for  if  I  win  she  wins  you;  but  you  can  get 
rid  of  her  some  other  way.  The  little  beast !  She  thinks 
she  can  make  use  of  me  as  a  bridge  to  cross  over  to  her 
Marquess,  but  she  can't!" 

"Her  Marquess?"  Jim  mumbled.  "What  does  that 
mean?" 

Charity  regretted  her  impetuous  speech,  but  McNiven 
explained  it. 

Jim  was  pretty  well  deadened  to  shocks  by  this  time, 
but  the  news  that  his  wife  had  been  disloyal  found  an  un- 
touched spot  in  his  heart  to  stab.  It  gave  him  a  needed 
resentment,  however,  and  a  much-needed  something  to 
feel  wronged  about. 

He  caught  a  spark  of  Charity's  blazing  anger,  and  they 
resolved  to  fight  the  case  to  the  limit.  And  that  was 
where  it  took  them. 


CHAPTER  X 

ONCE  the  battle  was  joined,  a  fierce  desire  for  haste 
impelled  all  of  these  people.  Kedzie  dreaded  every 
hour's  delay  as  a  new  risk  of  losing  Strathdene,  who  was 
showing  an  increasing  rage  at  having  the  name  of  his 
wife-to-be  bandied  about  in  the  press,  with  her  portraits 
in  formal  pose  or  snapped  by  batteries  of  reporters. 

Her  lawyer  emphasized  the  heartbreak  it  was  to  her  to 
learn  that  her  adored  husband  had  been  led  astray  by  her 
trusted  friend.  This  did  not  make  pleasant  reading  for 
the  jealous  Strathdene,  and  he  wished  himself  jolly  well 
out  of  the  whole  affair. 

It  was  not  long  before  his  own  name  began  to  slip  into 
the  case  by  innuendo.  Once  he  was  in,  he  could  not  de- 
cently abandon  his  Kedzie,  though  he  had  to  prove  his 
devotion  by  denying  it  and  threatening  to  shoot  anybody 
who  implied  that  his  interest  in  Mrs.  Dyckman  was 
anything  more  than  formal. 

Jim  Dyckman  was  impatient  to  have  done  with  the  suit, 
however  it  ended.  He  was  tossed  on  both  horns  of  the 
dilemma.  He  was  compelled  to  fight  one  woman  to  save 
another.  He  could  not  defend  Charity  without  striking 
Kedzie  and  he  could  not  spare  Kedzie  without  destroying 
Charity. 

In  a  situation  that  would  have  overwhelmed  the  greatest 
tacticians  he  floundered  miserably.  He  vowed  that  what- 
ever the  outcome  of  the  case  might  be,  he  would  never 
look  at  a  woman  again.  Men  find  it  very  easy  to  condemn 
womankind  en  bloc,  and  they  are  forever  forswearing  the 
sex  as  if  it  were  a  unit  or  a  bad  habit. 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

During  the  necessary  delay  in  reaching  trial  Jim  asked 
and  received  an  extension  of  his  leave  of  absence;  then  his 
regiment  came  home  from  the  Border  and  was  mustered 
out  of  the  Federal  service  and  received  again  into  the 
State  control.  Jim  felt  almost  as  much  ashamed  of  in- 
volving his  regiment  in  his  scandal  as  Charity. 

He  had  suffered  so  greatly  from  the  embarrassment  of 
the  publicity  that  he  could  hardly  endure  to  face  his 
regiment  and  drill  with  his  company.  He  offered  his 
resignation  again,  but  it  was  not  accepted. 

In  fact,  under  the  new  condition  of  the  National  Guard 
service,  his  immediate  officers  had  nothing  to  do  with  his 
resignation. 

The  probability  of  a  call  to  arms,  not  against  Mexico, 
but  against  ^the  almost  almighty  German  Empire,  was  so 
great  that  it  looked  like  slackery  or  cowardice  to  ask  to  be 
excused.  His  next  dread  was  that  the  regiment  would  be 
mustered  in  before  the  case  was  finished,  compelling  its 
postponement  and  leaving  Charity  to  languish  unrevenged. 

For  his  inclusive  anger  at  Everywoman  soon  changed 
back  to  deeper  affection  than  ever.  The  first  sight  of  her 
on  the  witness-stand  at  the  mercy  of  the  inquisition  of  the 
unscrupulous  Beattie  brought  back  all  his  old  emotions 
for  her  and  unnumbered  new. 

He  had  seen  a  picture  of  one  of  the  Christian  martyrs 
whose  torture  was  inflicted  on  her  by  a  man  armed  with 
steel  pincers  to  pluck  off  her  flesh  from  her  shuddering 
soul  bit  by  bit.  It  seemed  to  him  that  his  sainted  Charity 
was  condemned  to  like  atrocity.  Her  hands  were  bound 
by  the  thongs  of  the  law,  her  body  was  stripped  to  the  eyes 
of  the  crowd,  and  the  tormentor  went  here  and  there, 
nipping  at  the  quick  with  intolerable  cruelty. 

And  Jim  must  not  go  to  her  rescue.  He  must  not  pro- 
test or  lift  a  hand  in  her  behalf.  He  must  sit  and  suffer 
with  her  while  the  anguish  squeezed  the  big  sweat  out  of 
his  knotted  brows. 

It  had  been  hard  enough  to  await  the  appearance  of  the 

582 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

case  on  the  docket,  to  sit  through  the  selection  of  the 
jury,  and  to  study  the  gradual  recruitment  of  that  squad 
of  twelve  sphinxes,  all  commonplace,  yet  mysterious, 
lacking  in  all  divinity  of  comprehension  and  eager  to  be 
entertained  with  an  exciting  conflict. 

The  fact  that  a  woman  was  the  plaintiff  was  a  tremen- 
dous handicap  for  Jim,  even  though  a  woman  was  allied 
with  him  in  the  defense.  The  very  name  ' '  co-respondent ' ' 
condemned  her  in  advance  in  the  public  mind.  And  then 
she  was  rich  and  therefore  dissipated  in  the  minds  of  those 
who  cannot  imagine  wealth  as  providing  other  fascinating 
businesses  besides  vice.  And  Jim  was  wealthy  and  there- 
fore a  proper  object  for  punishment.  If  he  had  earned  his 
millions  it  must  have  been  by  tyrannous  corruption;  if 
he  had  only  inherited  them  that  was  worse  yet. 

Beattie  lost  no  chance  to  play  on  the  baser  phases  of 
the  noble  and  essential  suspicions  of  the  democratic  soul 
and  also  on  Kedzie's  humble  origin,  her  child-like  pretti- 
ness  proving  absolutely  a  child-like  innocence  and  trust, 
and  the  homely  simplicity  of  her  parents,  who,  being  poor 
and  ignorant,  were  therefore  inevitably  virtuous  and 
sincere. 

Jim  had  realized  from  the  first  what  a  guilty  aspect  his 
unfortunate  excursion  with  Charity  must  wear  in  the  eyes 
of  any  one  but  her  and  him.  Even  the  waiter  who  was  on 
the  ground  had  unwittingly  conspired  with  their  delicacy 
to  put  them  in  a  most  indelicate  situation.  Skip  went  on 
the  stand,  reveling  in  his  first  experience  of  fame,  basking 
in  the  spot-light  like  a  cheap  actor,  and  acting  very  badly, 
yet  well  enough  for  the  groundlings  he  amused. 

Jim  and  Charity  underwent  a  martyrdom  of  ridicule 
during  his  testimony.  A  man  and  woman  riding  backward 
on  a  mule  through  a  jeering  mob  might  seem  pathetic 
enough  if  one  had  the  heart  to  deny  himself  the  laughter, 
but  Jim  and  Charity  made  their  grotesque  pilgrimage 
without  exciting  sympathy. 

Beattie  had  tried  to  get  Mrs.  Noxon  on  the  stand  to 

583 


confirm  tne  proof  that  Charity  had  spent  the  night  away, 
but  the  old  lady  showed  her  contempt  of  the  court  and  of 
the  submarines  by  sailing  for  Europe  to  escape  the  ordeal. 
The  chauffeur,  the  valet,  and  the  Viewcrest  servants  were 
enough,  however,  to  corroborate  Skip  Magruder's  story 
beyond  any  assailing,  and  handwriting  experts  had  no 
difficulty  in  convincing  the  jury  that  Jim's  signature  on 
the  hotel  register  was  in  his  own  handwriting.  He  had 
made  no  effort  to  disguise  it  or  even  to  change  his  name 
till  the  last  of  it  was  well  begun. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thropp  made  splendid  witnesses  for  their 
child  and  the  old  mother's  tears  melted  a  jury  that  had 
never  seen  her  weep  for  meaner  reasons. 

When  Charity  reached  the  stand  the  case  against  her 
was  so  complete  that  all  her  bravery  was  gone.  She  felt 
herself  a  fool  for  having  brought  the  ordeal  on  herself. 
She  took  not  even  self-respect  with  her  to  the  chair  of 
torture. 


CHAPTER  XI 

IN  the  good  old  days  of  Hester  Prynne  they  published  a 
faithless  wife  by  sewing  a  scarlet  "A"  upon  the  bosom 
of  her  dress.     Nowadays  the  word  is  pronounced  "co- 
respondent," and  it  may  be  affixed  to  any  woman's  name 
by  any  newspaper,  or  any  plaintiff  in  a  divorce  case. 

So  fearful  a  power  was  so  much  abused  that  since  1911 
in  New  York  the  co-respondent  has  been  permitted  to 
come  into  the  court  and  oppose  the  label.  It  is  in  sort  a 
revival  of  the  ancient  right  to  trial  by  ordeal.  This 
hideous  privilege  of  proving  innocence  by  walking  unshod 
over  hot  plowshares  is  most  frigidly  set  forth  in  the 
statute  where  the  lawyer's  gift  for  putting  terrible  things 
in  desiccated  phrases  was  never  better  shown  than  in 
Section  1757. 

In  an  action  brought  to  obtain  a  divorce  on  the  ground  of 
adultery,  the  plaintiff  or  defendant  may  serve  a  copy  of  his 
pleading  on  the  co-respondent  named  therein.  At  any  time 
within  twenty  days  after  such  service  on  said  co-respondent  he 
may  appear  to  defend  such  action,  so  far  as  the  issues  affect 
such  co-respondent.  If  no  such  service  be  made,  then  at  any 
time  before  the  entry  of  judgment  any  co-respondent  named  in 
any  of  the  pleadings  shall  have  the  right,  at  any  time  before  the 
entry  of  judgment,  to  appear  either  in  person  or  by  attorney 
in  said  action  and  demand  of  plaintiff's  attorney  a  copy  of  the 
summons  and  complaint,  which  must  be  served  within  ten  days 
thereafter,  and  he  may  appear  to  defend  such  action,  so  far  as 
the  issues  affect  such  co-respondent.  In  case  no  one  of  the 
allegations  of  adultery  controverted  by  such  co-respondent 
shall  be  proved,  such  co-respondent  shall  be  entitled  to  a  bill  of 
costs  against  the  person  naming  him  as  such  co-respondent, 
which  bill  of  costs  shall  consist  only  of  the  sum  now  allowed  by 

585 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

law  as  a  trial  fee,  and  disbursements,  and  such  co-respondent 
shall  be  entitled  to  have  an  execution  issue  for  the  collection  of 
the  same. 


The  exact  amount  of  money  was  set  forth  in  another 
place,  in  Section  3251,  where  it  is  stated  that  the  sums 
obtainable  are  "for  trial  of  an  issue  of  fact,  $30,  and 
when  the  trial  necessarily  occupies  more  than  two  days, 
$10  in  addition  thereto." 

In  other  words,  Mrs.  Charity  Coe  Cheever,  finding  her 
life  of  good  works  and  pure  deeds  crowned  with  the  infamy 
which  Mrs.  Kedzie  Dyckman  in  her  anger  and  her  haste 
pressed  on  her  brow,  had  the  full  permission  of  the  law 
to  come  into  the  public  court,  face  a  vitriolic  lawyer,  and 
deny  her  guilt. 

If  she  survived  the  trip  through  hell  she  could  collect 
from  her  accuser  forty  dollars  to  pay  her  lawyer  with. 
The  priceless  boon  of  such  a  vindication  she  could  keep 
for  herself.  And  that  ended  her. 

This  is  only  one  of  the  numberless  vicious  and  filthy 
and  merciless  consequences  of  the  things  done  in  the  name 
of  virtue  by  those  who  believe  divorce  to  be  so  great  an 
evil  that  they  will  commit  every  other  evil  in  order  to 
oppose  it. 

In  no  other  realm  of  law  and  punishment  has  severity 
had  more  need  of  hypocrisy  to  justify  itself  than  in  the 
realm  of  wedlock.  What  grosser  burlesque  could  there  be 
than  the  conflict  between  the  theory  and  the  practice? 
The  law  and  the  Church,  claiming  what  few  people  will 
deny,  that  marriage  is  an  immensely  solemn,  even  a  sacred, 
condition,  have  made  entrance  into  it  as  easy  as  possible 
and  the  escape  from  it  as  difficult.  It  is  as  if  one  were  to 
say,  "Revolvers  are  very  dangerous  weapons,  therefore 
they  shall  be  placed  within  the  reach  of  infants,  but  they 
must  on  no  account  be  taken  away  from  them,  and  once 
grasped  they  must  never  be  laid  down." 

The  most  stringent  rules  have  been  formulated  to 

586 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

prevent  those  people  from  marrying  each  other  who  are 
least  likely  to  want  to — namely,  blood  relations.  But 
there  is  no  law  against  total  strangers  meeting  at  the  altar 
for  the  first  time,  and  the  marriage  by  proxy  of  people  who 
have  never  seen  each  other  has  had  the  frequent  blessing 
of  ecclesiastic  pomp. 

At  a  time  when  legal  divorce  was  too  horrible  to  con- 
template they  made  very  pretty  festivals  of  betrothing 
little  children  who  could  not  understand  the  ceremony  or 
even  parrot  the  pledge.  Who  indeed  can  understand  the 
pledge  before  its  meaning  is  made  clear  by  life? 

And  why  should  people  be  forced  to  make  an  eternal 
pledge  whose  keeping  is  beyond  their  power  or  prophecy 
and  from  which  there  is  no  release?  What  is  it  but  a 
subornation  of  perjury? 

Those  who  so  blithely  scatter  flowers  before  bridal 
couples  and  old  shoes  after  them  are  perfectly  benevolent, 
of  course,  in  their  abhorrence  of  "separating  the  twain 
if  they  begin  to  throw  their  old  shoes  at  each  other;  for 
they  are  sincerely  convinced  that  if  people  were  permitted 
to  do  as  they  pleased,  nothing  on  earth  would  please  them 
but  vice.  And  so  those  who  have  the  lawmaking  itch 
set  about  saving  humanity  from  itself  by  making  inhuman 
laws,  which  the  clever  and  the  criminal  evade  or  break 
through,  leaving  the  gentle  and  the  timid  in  the  net. 

For  there  was  never  no  divorce.  No  amount  of  law 
has  ever  availed  to  keep  those  together  who  had  the 
courage  or  the  cruelty  to  break  the  bonds.  By  hook  or  by 
crook,  if  not  by  book,  they  will  be  free. 

The  question  of  the  children  is  often  used  to  cloud  the 
issue,  as  if  all  that  children  needed  for  their  welfare  were 
the  formal  alliance  of  their  parents,  and  as  if  a  home  where 
hatred  rages  or  complacent  vice  is  serene  were  the  ideal 
rearing-ground  for  the  young.  When  love  of  their  chil- 
dren is  enough  to  keep  two  incompatible  souls  together 
there  is  no  need  of  the  law.  When  that  love  is  insufficient 
what  can  the  law  accomplish?  And  what  of  the  innumer- 

587 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

able  families  where  there  have  been  no  children,  or  where 
they  are  dead  or  grown-up? 

The  experiment  of  forbidding  what  cannot  be  pre- 
vented and  of  refusing  legal  sanction  to  what  human 
nature  demands  has  been  given  centuries  of  trial  with  no 
success. 

Marriage  is  among  the  last  of  the  institutions  to  have 
the  daylight  let  in  and  the  windows  thrown  open.  For  the 
home  is  no  more  threatened  by  liberty  than  the  State  is, 
and  that  pair  which  is  kept  together  only  by  the  shackles 
of  the  law  is  already  divorced;  its  cohabitation  is  a  scan- 
dal. Free  love  in  the  promiscuous  sense  is  no  uglier  than 
coupled  loathing.  The  social  life  of  that  community 
where  divorce  is  least  free  is  no  purer  than  that  where 
divorce  is  not  difficult.  Otherwise  South  Carolina,  which 
alone  of  the  States  permits  no  divorce  on  any  ground, 
should  be  an  incomparable  Eden  of  marital  innocence. 
Is  it?  And  New  York,  which  has  only  one  ground,  and 
that  the  scriptural,  should  be  the  next  most  innocent. 
Is  it? 

Meanwhile  the  mismated  of  our  day  who  are  struggling 
through  the  transition  period  between  the  despotism  of 
matrimony  and  its  republic  can  be  sure  that  the  righteous 
will  omit  no  abuse  that  they  can  inflict.  Those  who  would 
free  Russias  must  face  Siberias. 

The  worst  phase  of  it  is  that  some  of  those  who  are 
determined  to  be  free  and  cannot  otherwise  get  free  will 
not  hesitate  to  destroy  innocent  persons  who  may  be  use- 
ful to  their  escape. 

Mrs.  Kedzie  Dyckman  had  her  heart  set  on  releasing 
herself  from  the  husband  she  had  in  order  that  she  might 
try  another  who  promised  her  more  happiness,  more  love, 
and  more  prestige.  The  husband  she  had  would  have 
been  willing  enough  to  set  her  free,  both  because  he  liked 
to  give  her  whatever  she  wanted  and  because  he  was  not 
in  love  with  their  marriage  himself. 

But  the  law  of  New  York  State  says  that  married 

588 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

couples  shall  not  uncouple  amicably  and  intelligently. 
If  they  will  part  it  must  be  with  bitterness  and  laceration. 
One  of  the  two  must  be  driven  out  through  the  ugly  gate 
of  adultery.  They  must  part  as  enemies  and  they  must 
sacrifice  some  third  person  as  a  blood-offering  on  the  altar. 

It  is  a  strange  thing  that  the  lamb,  which  is  the  symbol 
of  innocence  and  harmlessness,  should  have  always  been 
the  favorite  for  sacrifice. 

Charity  Coe  had  happened  along  at  the  convenient 
moment. 


CHAPTER  XII 

MRS.    CHARITY    COE     CHEEVER,     take    the 
stand.  .  .  ." 

"  Ju  swear  tell  tru  thole  tru  noth  buth  tru  thelpugod?" 

"I  do." 

McNiven,  in  the  direct  examination,  asked  only  such 
questions  as  Charity  easily  answered  with  proud  denials 
of  guilt.  Beattie  began  the  cross-examination  with  a 
sneering  scorn  of  her  good  faith. 

"Mrs.  Cheever,  you  are  the  co-respondent  in  this  case 
of  Dyckman  versus  Dyckman?" 

"I  am." 

"And  on  this  night  you  went  motoring  with  defendant?" 

"Yes." 

"Was  his  wife  with  you?" 

"No;  you  see — " 

"Was  any  other  person  with  you?" 

"You  see,  it  was  a  new  car  and  it  was  only  our  intention 
to—" 

"Was  any  other  person  with  you?" 

"No." 

"And  you  spent  the  night  with  the  defendant  in  the 
Viewcrest  Inn?" 

"That  is  hardly  the  way  I  should  put  it." 

"Answer  the  question,  please." 

"I  will  not  answer  such  an  insulting  question." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon  most  humbly.  Were  you  registered 
as  the  defendant's  wife?" 

McNiven's  voice:  "I  'bject.  There  is  no  evidence 
witness  even  saw  the  book." 

590 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

The  judge :  ' '  Objection  s'tained. ' ' 

"Well,  then,  Mrs.  Cheever,  did  you  see  the  defendant 
write  in  the  book?" 

"I— I— perhaps  I  did—" 

"Perhaps  you  did.  You  heard  the  waiter  Magruder 
testify  here  awhile  ago  that  he  insisted  on  defendant 
registering,  and  defendant  reluctantly  complied.  Do  you 
remember  that?" 

"  I — I — I  believe  I  do.     But  I  didn't  see  what  he  wrote." 

"You  didn't  see  what  he  wrote.  Exhibit  A  shows  that 
he  wrote  'Mr.  and  Mrs.  James  Dysart.'  You  heard  the 
handwriting  experts  testify  that  the  writing  was  Dyck- 
man's.  But  you  did  not  see  the  writing.  Did  you  not, 
however,  hear  the  waiter  speak  of  you  as  the  defendant's 
wife?" 

"Well — I  may  have  heard  him." 

"You  didn't  tell  him  that  you  were  not  the  defendant's 
wife?" 

"I  didn't  speak  to  the  waiter  at  all.  It  was  a  very 
embarrassing  situation." 

"It  must  have  been.  So  you  did  not  deny  that  you 
were  the  defendant's  wife?" 

"You  see,  it  was  like  this.  When  Mr.  Dyckman  asked 
me  to  try  his  new  car — " 

"  You  did  not  deny  that  you  were  the  defendant's  wife?" 

"I  hadn't  the  faintest  idea  that  we  could  have  gone  so 
far—" 

"Answer  the  question!" 

"But  I'm  coming  to  that—" 

The  judge :  ' '  Witness  will  answer  question . ' ' 

"But,  your  Honor,  can't  I  explain?  Has  he  a  right  to 
ask  these  horrible  things  in  that  horrible  way?" 

The  lawyer:  "We  are  trying  to  get  at  the  horrible 
truth.  But  if  you  prefer  not  to  answer  I  will  not  press 
the  point.  The  waiter  showed  you  to  the  parlor,  saying 
that  the  rest  of  the  hotel  was  occupied?" 

"Yes." 


"He  left  you  there  together,  you  and  the  defendant?" 

"Well,  he  went  away,  but — " 

"And  left  you  together.  He  so  testified.  He  also  tes- 
tified that  he  found  you  together  the  next  morning.  Is 
that  true?" 

"Oh,  that's  outrageous.     I  refuse  to  answer." 

Jim  Dyckman  rose  from  his  chair  in  a  frenzy  of  wrath. 
His  lawyer,  McNiven,  pressed  him  back  and  pleaded  with 
him  in  a  whisper  to  remember  the  court.  He  yielded 
helplessly,  cursing  himself  for  his  disgraceful  lack  of 
chivalry. 

The  judge  spoke  sternly.  "Witness  will  answer  ques- 
tions of  counsel  or — " 

"But,  your  Honor,  he  is  trying  to  make  me  say  that  I — 
Oh,  it's  loathsome.  I  didn't.  I  didn't.  He  has  no 
right!" 

When  a  woman's  hair  is  caught  in  a  traveling  belt  and 
she  is  drawn  backward,  screaming,  into  the  wheels  of  a 
great  machinery  that  will  mangle  her  beauty  if  it  does  not 
helplessly  murder  her  there  are  not  many  people  whose 
hearts  are  hard  enough  to  withhold  pity  until  they  learn 
whether  or  not  her  plight  was  due  to  carelessness. 

There  are  always  a  few,  however,  who  will  add  their 
blame  to  her  burden,  and  they  usually  invoke  the  name  of 
justice  for  their  lethargy  of  spirit. 

Yet  even  the  cruelty  of  that  severity  is  a  form  of  self- 
protection  against  a  shattering  grief;  and  a  perfect  heart 
•would  have  pity  even  for  the  pitiless,  since  they,  too,  are 
the  victims  of  their  own  carelessness;  they,  too,  are  drawn 
backward  into  the  soul-crushing  cogs  of  the  world. 

Mrs.  Charity  Coe  Cheever,  as  good  a  woman  as  ever 
was,  was  being  dragged  to  the  meeting-point  of  great 
wheels,  but  she  had  turned  about  and  was  fighting  to 
escape,  at  least  with  what  was  dearer  than  her  life.  The 
pain  and  the  terror  were  supreme,  and  even  if  she  wrenched 
free  from  destruction  it  would  be  at  the  cost  of  lasting 
scars.  Yet  she  fought. 

592 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

It  had  been  all  too  easy  for  the  infuriated  Kedzie  Dyck- 
man  to  entangle  Charity  in  the  machinery.  Kedzie  was  a 
little  terrified  at  the  consequences  of  her  own  act,  though 
she  would  have  said  that  she  did  it  in  self-defense  and  to 
punish  an  outrage  upon  her  rights.  But  when  persons  set 
out  to  punish  other  persons,  it  is  not  often  that  their  own 
hands  are  altogether  innocent. 

If  the  Christly  edict,  "Let  him  that  is  without  sin  cast 
the  first  stone,"  had  been  followed  out  there  would  never 
have  been  another  stone  cast.  And  one  might  ask  if  the 
world  would  have  been,  or  could  have  been,  the  worse 
for  that  abstention.  For,  whatever  else  may  be  true,  the 
venerable  practices  of  justice  have  been  false  and  futile. 

And  now,  nearly  two  thousand  years  later,  after  two 
thousand  years  more  of  heartbreaking  history,  an  increas- 
ing few  are  asking  bitterly  if  punishment  has  ever  paid. 

Vaguely  imagining  on  one  side  the  infinite  misery  and 
ugliness  of  the  dungeons  and  tortures,  the  disgraces  and 
executions  of  the  ages  with  their  counter-punishment  on 
the  inquisitors  and  the  executioners,  and  setting  against 
them  that  uninterrupted  stream  of  deeds  we  call  crimes, 
what  is  the  picture  but  a  ghastly  vanity — an  eternal 
process  of  trying  to  dam  the  floods  of  old  Nile  by  flinging 
in  forever  poor  wretch  after  poor  wretch  to  drown  un- 
redeemed and  unavailing? 

Charity  was  the  latest  sacrifice.  If  she  had  been 
guilty  of  loving  too  wildly  well,  or  of  drifting  uncon- 
sciously into  a  situation  where  opportunity  made  tempta- 
tion irresistible,  there  would  be  a  certain  reaction  to  pity 
after  she  had  been  definitely  condemned.  There  are  at 
times  advantages  in  weakness,  as  women  well  know, 
though  Charity  despised  them  now. 

Kedzie's  lawyer,  however,  felt  it  good  tactics  to  as- 
sume now  the  pose  of  benevolent  patience  with  an  erring 
one.  Seeing  that  Charity  was  in  danger  of  stirring  the 
hearts  of  the  jurors  by  her  suffering,  he  forestalled  their 
sympathy  and  murmured: 

593 


WE   CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"I  will  wait  till  Mrs.  Cheever  has  regained  control  of 
herself." 

Instantly  Charity's  pride  quickened  in  her.  She 
wanted  none  of  that  beast's  pity.  She  responded  to  the 
strange  sense  of  discipline  before  fate  that  makes  a  man 
walk  soldierly  to  the  electric  chair;  inspires  a  caught  spy 
to  stand  placidly  before  his  own  coffin  and  face  the  firing- 
squad;  led  Joan  of  Arc  after  one  panic  of  terror  to  wait 
serene  among  the  crackling  fagots. 

The  lawyer  was  relieved.  He  had  been  afraid  that 
Charity  would  weep.  He  resumed  the  probe: 

"And  now,  Mrs.  Cheever,  if  you  are  quite  calm  I  will 
proceed.  I  regret  the  necessity  of  asking  these  questions, 
but  you  were  not  compelled  to  come  into  court.  You 
came  of  your  own  volition,  did  you  not?" 

"Yes." 

"Witnesses  have  testified  and  you  have  not  denied  that 
you  arrived  at  the  Viewcrest  Inn  late  at  night;  that 
you  saw  the  defendant  register;  that  you  and  he  went  to 
the  only  room  left;  that  the  waiter  left  you  together  and 
found  you  together  the  next  morning.  You  have  heard 
that  testimony,  have  you  not?" 

"Yes." 

"Knowing  all  this,  do  you  still  claim  that  your  conduct 
was  above  reproach?" 

"For  discretion,  no.     I  was  foolish  and  indiscreet." 

"And  that  was  all?" 

"Yes." 

"You  are  innocent  of  the  charge,  then?" 

"Yes." 

"Do  you  ask  the  jury  to  believe  you?" 

"I  ask  them  to — yes!     Yes!     I  ask  them  to." 

"Do  you  expect  them  to?" 

"Oh,  they  ought  to." 

"  If  you  had  been  guilty  of  misconduct  would  you  admit 
it?" 

"Yes." 

594 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Do  you  expect  them  to  believe  that?" 

"If  they  knew  me  they  would." 

"Well,  we  haven't  all  the  privilege  of  knowing  you  as 
well  as  the  defendant  does.  You  may  step  down,  Mrs. 
Cheever,  thank  you." 

McNiven  rose.  "One  moment,  Mrs.  Cheever.  You 
testified  on  direct  examination  that  the  defendant  left  you 
immediately  after  the  waiter  did?" 

"Yes." 

"And  that  he  did  not  return  till  the  next  morning,  just 
before  the  waiter  returned." 

"Yes." 

"That  is  all,  Mrs.  Cheever." 

McNiven  would  have  done  better  to  leave  things  alone. 
The  sturdy  last  answer  of  Charity  and  the  unsportsman- 
like sneer  of  Kedzie's  lawyer  had  inclined  the  jury  her 
way.  McNiven's  explanation  awoke  again  the  skeptic 
spirit. 

Charity  descended  from  her  pillory  with  a  feeling  that 
she  had  said  none  of  the  things  she  had  planned  to  say. 
The  eloquence  of  her  thoughts  had  seemed  incompatible 
somehow  with  the  witness-stand.  At  a  time  when  she 
needed  to  say  so  much  she  had  said  so  little  and  all  of  it 
wrong. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

JIM  DYCKMAN'S  heart  was  so  wrung  with  pity  for 
Charity  when  she  stepped  down  and  sought  her  place 
in  a  haze  of  despair  that  he  resolved  to  make  a  fight  for 
her  himself.  He  insisted  on  McNiven's  calling  him 
to  the  stand,  though  McNiven  begged  him  to  let  ill 
enough  alone. 

He  took  the  oath  with  a  fierce  enthusiasm  that  woke 
the  jury  a  little,  and  he  answered  his  own  lawyer's  ques- 
tions with  a  fervor  that  stirred  a  hope  in  the  jury's  heart, 
a  sorely  wrung  heart  it  was,  for  its  pity  for  Charity  was  at 
war  with  its  pity  for  Kedzie,  and  its  admiration  for  Jim 
Dyckman,  who  was  plainly  a  gentleman  and  a  good  sport 
even  if  he  had  gone  wrong,  could  only  express  itself  by 
punishing  Kedzie,  whose  large  eyes  and  sweet  mouth  the 
jury  could  not  ignore  or  resist. 

When  his  own  lawyer  had  elicited  from  Jim  the  story 
as  he  wanted  it  told,  which  chanced  to  be  the  truth, 
McNiven  abandoned  him  to  Beattie  with  the  words: 

"Your  witness." 

Beattie  was  in  fine  fettle.  He  had  become  a  name  talked 
about  transcontinentally  and  now  he  was  crossing  swords 
with  the  famous  Dyckman.  And  Dyckman  was  at  a 
hideous  disadvantage.  He  could  only  parry,  he  could  not 
counter-thrust.  There  was  hardly  a  trick  forbidden  to 
the  cross-examiner  and  hardly  a  defense  permitted  to  the 
witness. 

And  yet  that  very  helplessness  gave  the  witness  a  cer- 
tain shadowy  aide  at  his  side. 

Jim's  heart  was  beating  high  with  his  fervor  to  defend 

596 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Charity,  but  it  stumbled  when  Beattie  rose  and  faced 
him.     And  Beattie  faced  him  a  long  while  before  he  spoke. 

A  slow  smile  crept  over  the  lawyer's  mien  as  he  made 
an  excuse  for  silence  out  of  the  important  task  of  scrubbing 
his  eye-glasses. 

Before  that  alkaline  grin  Jim  felt  his  faith  in  himself 
wavering.  He  remembered  unworthy  thoughts  he  had 
entertained,  graceless  things  he  had  done;  he  felt  that 
his  presence  here  as  a  knight  of  unassailable  purity  was 
hypocritical.  He  winced  at  all  points  from  the  uncer- 
tainty as  to  the  point  to  be  attacked.  His  life  was  like  a 
long  frontier  and  his  enemy  was  mobilized  for  a  sudden 
offensive.  He  would  know  the  point  selected  for  the 
assault  when  he  felt  the  assault.  The  first  gun  was  that 
popular  device,  a  supposititious  question. 

"Mr.  Dyckman,  you  are  accused  of — well,  we'll  say 
co-respondence  with  the  co-respondent.  You  have  de- 
nied your  guilt  in  sundry  affidavits  and  on  the  witness- 
stand  here.  Remembering  the  classic  and  royal  ideal  of 
the  man  who  'perjured  himself  like  a  gentleman,'  and 
assuming — I  say  'assuming'  what  you  deny — that  you 
had  been  guilty,  would  you  have  admitted  it?" 

"I  could  not  have  been  guilty." 

"Could  not?  Really!  you  astonish  me!  And  why 
not,  please?" 

"Because  Mrs.  Cheever  would  never  have  consented. 
She  is  a  good  woman." 

This  unexpected  answer  to  the  old  trick  question  jolted 
Beattie  perceptibly  and  brought  the  jury  forward  a  little. 
The  tears  gushed  to  Charity's  eyes  and  she  felt  herself 
unworthy  a  champion  so  pious. 

Beattie  acknowledged  the  jolt  with  a  wry  smile  and 
returned: 

"Very  gallant,  Mr.  Dyckman;  you  want  to  be  a  gentle- 
man and  avoid  the  perjury,  too.  But  I  must  ask  you  to 
answer  the  question.  Suppose  you  had  been  guilty." 

Silence. 

597 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Answer  the  question!" 

Silence. 

"Will  his  Honor  kindly  instruct  the  witness  to  answer 
the  question?" 

Jim  broke  in,  "His  Honor  cannot  compel  me  to  suppose 
something  that  is  impossible." 

The  jury  rejoiced  unwillingly,  like  the  crowd  in  the 
bleachers  when  a  man  on  the  opposing  team  knocks  a 
home  run.  The  jury  liked  Jim  better.  But  what  they 
liked,  after  all,  was  what  they  falsely  imagined.  They 
assumed  that  Jim  had  been  out  on  a  lark  and  got  caught 
and  was  putting  up  a  good  scrap  for  his  lady  friend.  He 
was  a  hum-dinger,  and  no  wonder  the  lady  fell  for  him. 
Into  such  slang  their  souls  translated  the  holiness  of  his 
emotions,  and  they  voted  him  guilty  even  in  awarding 
him  their  admiration  for  his  defense. 

Beattie  paused  again,  then  suddenly  asked,  "Mr. 
Dyckman,  how  long  have  you  loved  Mrs.  Cheever?" 

"What  do  you  mean  by  'loved'?" 

"It  is  a  familiar  word.     Answer  the  question." 

"I  have  admired  Mrs.  Cheever  since  she  was  a  child. 
We  have  always  been  friends." 

"Your  'friendship'  was  considerably  excited  when  she 
married  Mr.  Cheever,  wasn't  it?" 

"I — I  thought  he  was  unworthy  of  her." 

"Was  that  why  you  beat  him  up  in  a  fist  fight  at  your 
club?" 

This  startled  the  entire  court.  Even  reporters  who 
had  missed  the  news  were  excited.  McNiven  sprang  to 
his  feet,  crying: 

"I  'bject!  There  is  no  evidence  before  the  court  that 
there  ever  was  such  a  fight.  The  question  is  incompir- 
relvimmaterial. ' ' 

"S'tained!"  said  the  judge. 

Beattie  was  satisfied.  The  arrow  had  been  pulled  out, 
but  its  poison  remained.  He  made  use  of  another  of  his 
tantalizing  pauses,  then: 

598 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"It  was  shortly  afterward  that  Mrs.  Cheever  divorced 
her  husband,  was  it  not?" 

"I  'bject,"  McNiven  barked. 

"S'tained!"  the  judge  growled. 

"  Let  us  get  back  to  the  night  when  you  and  Mrs.  Chee- 
ver went  a-motoring."  Beattie  smiled.  "There  was  a 
beautiful  moon  on  that  occasion,  I  believe." 

The  jury  grinned.  The  word  "moon"  meant  foolish- 
ness. Beattie  took  Jim  through  the  story  of  that  ride  and 
that  sojourn  at  the  tavern,  and  every  question  he  asked 
condemned  Jim  to  a  choice  of  answers,  either  alternative 
making  him  out  ridiculously  virtuous  or  criminal. 

Beattie  rehearsed  the  undented  facts,  but  substituted  for 
the  glamour  of  innocence  in  bad  luck  the  sickly  glare  of 
cynicism.  He  asked  Jim  if  he  had  ever  heard  of  the  ex- 
pression, "  The  time,  the  place,  and  the  girl. "  He  had  the 
jury  snickering  at  the  thought  of  a  big  rich  youth  like  Jim 
being  such  a  ninny,  such  a  milksop  and  mollycoddle,  as  to 
defy  an  opportunity  so  perfect. 

The  public  mind  has  its  dirt  as  well  as  its  grandeurs; 
the  pool  that  mirrors  the  sky  is  easily  roiled  and 
muddied.  It  was  possible  for  the  same  people  to  abhor 
Jim  and  Charity  for  being  guilty  and  to  feel  that  if  they 
were  not  guilty  with  such  an  occasion  they  were  still 
more  contemptible. 

Thus  ridicule,  which  shakes  down  the  ancient  wrongs 
and  the  tyrants'  pretenses,  shakes  down  also  the  ancient 
virtues  and  the  struggling  ideals. 

Finally  Beattie  said,  "You  say  you  left  the  fair  co- 
respondent alone  in  the  hotel  parlor?" 

"I  did." 

"All  alone?" 

"Yes." 

"And  you  went  out  into  the  night,  as  the  saying  is?" 

"Yes." 

"But  you  testified  that  it  was  raining." 

"It  was." 

599 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"You  went  out  into  the  rain?" 

"Yes." 

"To  cool  your  fevered  brow?" 

Silence  from  Jim;  shrieks  of  laughter  from  the  silly 
spectators.  The  jury  was  shattered  with  amusement; 
the  judge  wiped  a  grin  from  his  lips.  Beattie  resumed : 

"Where  did  you  sleep?" 

"In  the  office  chair." 

"You  paid  for  the  parlor!  You  registered!  And  you 
slept  in  the  chair!"  [Gales  of  laughter.  His  Honor 
threatens  to  clear  the  court.]  "Who  saw  you  asleep  in 
the  chair?" 

"  I  don't  know — I  was  asleep." 

"Are  you  sure  that  you  did  not  just  dream  about  the 
chair?" 

"I  am  sure." 

"  That's  all." 

Jim  stepped  down,  feeling  idiotic. 

There  is  a  dignity  that  survives  and  is  illumined  by 
flames  of  martyrdom,  but  there  is  no  dignity  that  is  im- 
proved by  a  bladder-buffeting.  Jim  slunk  back  to  his 
place  and  cowered,  while  the  attorneys  made  their  ha- 
rangues. 

McNiven  spoke  with  passion  and  he  had  the  truth  on  his 
side,  but  it  lacked  the  convincing  look.  Beattie  rocked  the 
jury-box  with  laughter  and  showed  a  gift  for  parodying 
seriousness  that  would  carry  him  far  on  his  career.  Then 
he  switched  to  an  ardent  defense  of  the  purity  of  the  Amer- 
ican home,  and  ennobled  the  jury  to  a  knighthood  of 
chivalry  and  of  democracy.  As  he  pointed  out,  the  well- 
known  vices  of  the  rich  make  every  household  unsafe 
unless  they  are  sternly  checked  by  the  dread  hand  of  the 
law. 

He  called  upon  the  jury  to  inflict  on  the  Lothario  a  ver- 
dict that  would  not  only  insure  comfort  to  the  poor  little 
woman  whose  home  had  been  destroyed,  but  would  also  be 
severe  enough  to  make  even  a  multimillionaire  realize  and 

600 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

remember  that  the  despoiler  of  the  American  home  cannot 
continue  on  his  nefarious  path  with  impunity. 

The  judge  gave  a  long  and  solemn  charge  to  the  jury. 
It  was  fair  according  to  the  law  and  the  evidence,  but  the 
evidence  had  been  juggled  by  the  fates. 

The  jury  retired  and  remained  a  hideous  while. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

IT  was  only  a  pleasant  clubby  discussion  of  the  prob- 
lem of  Jim's  and  Charity's  innocence  that  delayed  the 
jury's  verdict.  One  or  two  of  the  twelve  had  a  sneaking 
suspicion  that  they  had  told  the  truth,  but  these  were 
laughed  out  of  their  wits  by  the  wiser  majority  who  were 
not  such  fools  as  to  believe  in  fairy-stories. 

As  one  of  the  ten  put  it :  "  That  Dyckman  guy  may  have 
gone  out  into  the  rain,  but,  believe  me,  he  knew  enough  to 
come  in  out  of  the  wet. " 

A  very  benevolent  old  gentleman  who  sympathized 
with  everybody  concerned  made  a  little  speech: 

"  It  seems  to  me,  gentlemen,  that  when  a  man  and  wife 
have  quarreled  as  bitterly  as  those  two  and  have  taken 
their  troubles  to  court,  there  is  no  use  trying  to  force  them 
together  again.  If  we  give  a  verdict  of  not  guilty,  that 
will  leave  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dyckman  married.  But  they 
must  hate  each  other  by  now  and  that  would  mean  life- 
long misery  and  sin  for  both.  So  I  think  we  will  save  valu- 
able time  and  satisfy  everybody  best  by  giving  a  verdict 
of  guilty.  It  won't  hurt  Dyckman  any." 

"What  about  Mrs.  Cheever?" 

"  Oh,  she's  gotta  lotta  money." 

None  of  the  jury  had  ever  had  so  much  as  that  and  it  was 
equivalent  to  a  good  time  and  the  answer  to  all  prayers,  so 
they  did  not  fret  about  Charity's  future.  On  the  first  bal- 
lot, after  a  proper  reminiscence  of  the  amusing  incidents  of 
the  trial  they  proceeded  to  a  decision.  The  verdict  was 
unanimous  that  Jim  was  guilty  as  charged.  Charity  was 
not  to  get  her  forty  dollars  nor  her  good  name. 

602 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

When  the  jurors  filed  back  into  the  box  the  court  came 
to  attention  and  listened  to  the  verdict. 

Jim  and  Charity  were  dazed  as  if  some  footpad  had 
struck  them  over  the  head  with  a  slingshot.  Kedzie  was 
hysterical  with  relief.  She  had  suffered,  too,  throughout 
the  trial.  And  now  she  had  been  vindicated. 

She  went  to  the  jury  and  she  shook  hands  with  each 
member  and  thanked  him. 

"You  know  I  accept  the  verdict  as  just  one  big  beautiful 
birthday  present."  It  was  not  her  birthday,  but  it  sound- 
ed well,  and  she  added,  "I  shall  always  remember  your 
kindly  faces.  Never  can  I  forget  one  of  you." 

Two  days  later  she  met  one  of  the  unforgetable  jurors 
on  the  street  and  did  not  recognize  him.  He  had  been  one- 
twelfth  of  her  knightly  champions,  but  she  cut  him  dead  as 
an  impertinent  stranger  when  he  tried  to  speak  to  her. 
She  cut  Skip  Magruder  still  deader  when  he  tried  to  ride 
home  with  her. 

He  came  to  call  and  showed  an  inclination  to  settle  down 
as  a  member  of  Kedzie's  intimate  circle.  He  had  speedily 
recovered  from  his  first  awe  at  the  sight  of  her  splendor. 
Finding  himself  necessary  to  her,  he  grew  odiously  pre- 
sumptuous. She  had  not  dared  to  rebuke  him.  Now  she 
thought  she  would  have  to  buy  him  off.  Skip  had  had  his 
witness  fees  and  his  expenses,  and  nothing  else  for  his 
pains.  Then  Beattie  warned  Kedzie  that  it  would  look 
bad  to  pay  Skip  any  money;  it  might  cast  suspicion  on  his 
testimony.  Kedzie  would  not  have  done  that  for  worlds. 
Besides,  when  she  learned  what  Mr.  Beattie's  fee  was  to  be, 
she  felt  too  poor  to  pay  anybody  anything. 

The  only  thing  she  could  do,  therefore,  was  to  remind 
Skip  of  the  beautiful  old  song,  "  Lovers  once,  but  strangers 
now. " 

"Besides,  Skippie  dear,  I'm  engaged." 

"Already?" 

"Yes." 

"You  woiked  that  excuse  on  me  when  you  tried  to 
603 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

explain  why  you  toined  me  down  when  I  wrote  you  the 
letter  at  the  stage  door." 

"Yes,  I  did." 

"Say,  Anitar,  you'd  oughter  git  some  new  material. 
Your  act  is  growin'  familiar." 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean." 

"Oh  no!  You  wasn't  never  in  vawdvul,  was  you,  oh, 
no!  not  a  tall !"  Kedzie  played  her  pout  on  him,  but  Skip 
glared  at  her,  shook  his  head,  kicked  himself  with  his  game 
leg,  and  said,  "I  gotta  give  you  credit,  Anitar,  you're  the 
real  thing  as  a  user." 

"A  what?"  said  Kedzie. 

"A  user,"  he  explained  in  his  elliptical  style.  "You're 
one  them  dames  uses  a  fella  like  he  was  a  napkin,  then 
trows  him  down.  You  used  me  twice  and  used  me  good.  I 
desoived  the  second  one,  for  I'm  the  kind  o'  guy  gets  his 
once  and  comes  back  for  more  in  the  same  place.  I'd  go 
tell  Jimmie  Dyckman  I  was  a  liar  but  I  ain't  anxious  to  be 
run  up  for  poijury,  and  I  ain't  achin'  to  advertise  what  a 
John  I  been.  So  long,  Anitar,  and  Gaw  delp  the  next  guy 
crosses  your  pat'." 

That  was  the  last  Kedzie  saw  of  Skip.  She  did  not 
miss  him.  She  hated  him  for  annoying  her  pride  and  she 
hated  the  law  that  she  used  for  her  divorce,  because  it  re- 
quired her  to  wait  three  months  before  the  interlocutory 
decree  should  become  final.  The  time  was  hazardously 
long  yet  short,  in  a  sense,  for  her  alimony  was  to  end  at 
the  end  of  three  months  if  she  married  again,  and  marrying 
again  was  her  next  ambition.  The  judge  had  fixed  her 
alimony  at  $30,000  a  year,  and  an  allowance  for  costs. 
Beattie  tried  to  make  a  huge  cost  settlement,  but  McNiven 
knew  of  Kedzie's  interest  in  the  Marquess  and  he  refused 
the  bait.  So  Kedzie  got  only  $7,500.  She  found  it  a 
ruinously  small  capital  to  begin  life  as  a  Marchioness  on — 
she  that  had  had  only  two  dollars  to  begin  life  in  New 
York  on !  The  Marquess  was  very  nice  about  it,  and  said 
he  didn't  want  any  of  Dyckman's  dirty  money.  But  Ked- 

604 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

zie  thought  of  life  in  England  with  alarm,  especially  as  she 
had  the  American  comic-opera  idea  that  all  foreign  peers 
are  penniless.  She  dreaded  to  think  what  might  happen 
in  that  three  months'  interregnum  between  husband  II 
and  husband  III.  Enough  was  happening  in  the  rest  of 
the  world. 

The  annus  miser abiKs  1917  had  begun  with  the  deter- 
mination of  the  German  Empire  to  render  the  seas  im- 
passable and  to  withdraw  the  pledge  to  President  Wilson 
that  merchant  ships  should  not  be  sunk  till  the  passengers 
and  crew  had  a  chance  to  get  into  open  boats.  On  Janu- 
ary 31,  1917,  "  Frightfulness "  began  anew,  and  the  under- 
sea fleets,  enormously  increased,  were  set  loose  in  shoals. 
Having  no  commerce  of  her  own  afloat,  it  was  safe  for 
Germany  to  sink  any  vessel  anywhere. 

Kedzie  began  to  wonder  if  she  would  ever  dare  to  sail 
for  her  future  ancestral  home,  and  if  she  did  how  long  her 
ship  would  last. 

On  February  3d  the  U-53,  which  had  sunk  Strath- 
dene's  ship  off  Newport,  sank  an  American  freighter  bound 
from  Galveston  to  Liverpool.  Other  American  vessels 
followed  her  into  the  depths.  On  February  27th  the 
Laconia,  of  18,000  tons  burden,  was  torpedoed  and  twelve 
passengers  died  of  exposure  in  the  bitter  weather.  In  one 
of  the  open  boats  a  Catholic  priest  administered  the  last 
rites  to  seven  persons. 

Mrs.  Hoy,  of  Chicago,  died  in  the  arms  of  her  daughter 
and  her  body  slipped  into  the  icy  waves,  to  be  followed  by 
her  daughter's  a  few  minutes  later. 

These  seemed  to  make  up  a  sufficient  total  of  American 
women  drowned,  and  on  the  next  day  the  President  de- 
clared that  the  long-awaited  "overt  act"  had  been  com- 
mitted. He  asked  Congress  to  declare  that  peace  with 
Germany  was  ended.  Her  ambassador  was  sent  home 
and  ours  called  home. 

In  March  the  British  captured  Bagdad  and  the  Ger- 
mans suddenly  retreated  along  a  sixty-mile  front  in 

605 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

France;  then  the  Russian  revolution  abruptly  changed  the 
almighty  Czar  into  a  weeping  prisoner  digging  snow.  And 
the  vast  burying-ground  of  Siberia  gave  up  its  living  dead 
in  a  sudden  apocalypse  of  freedom.  Fifty  thousand 
sledges  sped  across  the  steppes  laden  with  returning  exiles, 
chains  still  dangling  at  many  a  wrist  from  the  dearth  of 
blacksmiths  to  strike  them  off. 

Kedzie  did  not  value  the  privilege  of  living  in  times 
when  epochs  of  history  were  crowded  into  weeks  and  cycles 
completed  in  days.  The  revolution  in  Russia  disturbed 
Kedzie  as  it  did  many  a  monarch,  and  she  said  to  her 
mother: 

"What  a  shame  to  treat  the  poor  Czar  so  badly! 
Strathie  and  I  were  planning  to  visit  Russia  after  the  war, 
too.  The  Czar  was  awfully  nice  to  Strathie  once  and  I 
was  sure  we'd  be  invited  to  live  right  in  the  Duma  or  the 
Kremlin  or  whatever  they  call  the  palace.  And  now 
they've  got  a  cheap  and  nasty  old  republic  over  there! 
And  they're  talking  of  having  republics  everywhere. 
What  could  be  more  stupid?  As  if  everybody  was  born 
free  and  equal.  Mixing  all  the  aristocrats  right  up  with 
the  common  herd!" 

Mrs.  Thropp  agreed  that  it  was  simply  tumble. 

"Do  you  know  what?"  Kedzie  gasped. 

"What?"  her  mother  echoed. 

"  I've  just  had  a  hunch.  I'll  bet  that  by  the  time  I  get 
married  to  Strathie  there'll  be  nothing  left  but  republics, 
and  no  titles  at  tall.  His  people  came  over  with  Henry  the 
Conqueror  and  his  title  will  last  just  long  enough  for  me  to 
reach  for  it,  and  then — woof!  Wouldn't  it  be  just  my 
luck  to  become  plain  Mrs.  Strathdene  after  all  I've  had  to 
go  through!  Honestly,  m'mah,  don't  I  just  have  the  dog- 
on'destluck!" 

"It's  perfectly  awful,"  said  Mrs.  Thropp,  "but  bad  luck 
can't  go  on  forever." 

On  April  2d  the  future  Mrs.  Strathdene  was  cheered  by 
an  extraordinary  spectacle  —  newspapers  in  the  Metro- 

606 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

politan  Opera  House!  Kedzie  was  there  with  her  waning 
Marquess.  The  occasion  was  rare  enough  in  itself,  for 
an  American  opera  was  being  heard:  "The  Canterbury 
Pilgrims,"  with  Mr.  Reginald  De  Koven's  music  to  Mr. 
Percy  Mackaye's  text. 

Suddenly,  in  the  entr'acte  the  unheard-of  thing — the 
newspapers — appeared  in  the  boxes  and  about  the  house! 
People  spread  evening  extras  on  the  rails  and  read  excited- 
ly that  President  Wilson  had  gone  to  Congress  and  asked 
it  to  declare  that  a  state  of  war  existed  and  had  existed. 

The  Italian  manager  directed  the  Polish  conductor  to 
play  "  The  Star-Spangled  Banner"  and  the  three  thousand 
men  and  women  of  the  audience  made  a  chorus  on  the 
obverse  side  of  the  curtain. 

Mr.  Gerard,  lately  returned  from  Germany,  called  for 
"Three  cheers  for  President  Wilson,"  and  there  were  loud 
huzzahs  for  him  and  for  the  Allies. 

"You  and  I  are  allies  now,"  Kedzie  murmured  to  the 
Marquess.  She  thought  a  trifle  better  of  her  country. 

The  Austrian  prima  donna  fainted  and  could  not  appear 
in  the  last  act,  and  everybody  went  home  expecting  to  see 
the  vigor  of  Uncle  Sam  displayed  in  a  swift  and  tremendous 
delivery  of  a  blow  long,  long  withheld. 

The  vigor  was  displayed  in  a  tremendous  delivery  of 
words  far  better  withheld. 

It  was  a  week  before  Congress  agreed  that  war  existed 
and  over  a  month  passed  before  Congress  agreed  upon  the 
nature  of  the  army  to  be  raised.  Nearly  four  months 
passed  before  the  draft  was  made. 

Jim  Dyckman  was  almost  glad  of  the  delay,  for  it  gave 
him  hope  of  settling  his  spiritual  affairs  in  time  to  be  a 
soldier.  He  was  determined  to  marry  Charity  as  soon  as 
the  three  months'  probation  term  was  over.  But  Charity 
said  no !  Cowering  in  seclusion  from  the  pyes  of  her  world, 
she  cherished  a  dream  that  when  the  war  broke  and  the 
dead  began  to  topple  and  the  wounded  to  bleed,  she  might 
expiate  the  crime  she  had  not  committed,  by  devoting  to 

607 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

her  own  people  her  practised  mercies.  She  was  afraid  to 
offer  them  now,  or  even  to  make  her  appearance  among  the 
multitudinous  associations  that  sprang  up  everywhere  in  a 
frantic  effort  to  make  America  ready  in  two  weeks  for  a 
war  that  had  been  inevitable  for  two  years.  Not  only  a 
war  was  to  be  fought,  but  a  world  famine. 

Charity  was  ashamed  to  show  her  white  face  even  at  the 
Red  Cross.  She  busied  herself  with  writing  checks  for 
the  snow-storm  of  appeals  that  choked  her  mail.  Other- 
wise she  pined  in  idleness,  refusing  more  than  ever  the 
devotion  that  Jim  offered  her  now  in  a  longing  that  in- 
creased with  denial. 

She  suffered  infinitely,  yet  mocked  her  own  sufferings 
as  petty  trifles.  She  contrasted  them  with  what  the  mill- 
ions on  millions  of  Europe's  men  were  enduring  as  they 
huddled  in  the  snow-drenched,  grenade-spattered  trench- 
es, or  agonized  in  all  their  wounds  out  in  the  No-Man's 
Land  between  the  trenches.  She  told  herself  that  her  own 
heartaches  were  negligible,  despicable  against  the  in- 
numerable anguishes  of  the  women  who  saw  their  men, 
their  old  men,  their  young  men,  their  lads,  going  into  the 
eternal  mills  of  the  war,  while  hunger  and  loneliness  and 
toil  unknown  to  women  before  made  up  their  daily  por- 
tion. 

She  accused  herself  for  still  remaining  apart  from  that 
continental  sisterhood  of  grief.  All  America  seemed  to  be 
playing  Hamlet,  debating,  deferring,  letting  irresolution 
inhibit  every  necessary  duty. 

Since  her  country  had  disowned  her  and  refused  her 
justice  or  chivalry,  she  was  tempted  to  disown  her  country 
and  claim  citizenship  among  those  who  could  fight  and 
could  sacrifice  and  could  endure. 

It  was  not  easy  to  persuade  a  captain  to  take  a  woman 
passenger  aboard  his  ship,  now  that  the  German  ambition 
was  to  sink  a  million  tons  a  month,  but  she  resolved  again 
to  go  if  she  had  to  stowaway. 

First  she  would  finish  her  affairs,  make  her  will,  and  burn 

608 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

her  letters.  She  had  neglected  to  change  the  testament 
she  had  signed  when  she  became  Peter  Cheever's  wife,  and 
took  a  pride  in  making  him  her  sole  heir.  It  would 
be  ridiculous  to  make  him  such  a  post-mortem  gift  now, 
now  that  he  had  not  only  money  enough,  but  a  wife  that 
satisfied  him,  and  a  child. 

She  wondered  whom  to  leave  her  money  to.  Jim  Dyck- 
man's  name  kept  recurring  to  her  and  she  smiled  at  that, 
for  he  had  more  money  than  he  could  use.  Besides,  the 
mention  of  his  name  in  her  will  would  confirm  the  public 
belief  in  their  intrigue.  She  had  nobody  to  inflict  her  in- 
heritance upon  but  a  few  relatives,  mostly  rich  enough. 
She  decided  to  establish  a  fund  for  her  own  orphans,  the 
children  of  other  women  whom  she  had  adopted. 

Making  a  will  is  in  sort  a  preliminary  death.  Making 
hers,  Charity  felt  herself  already  gone,  and  looked  back  at 
life  with  a  finality  as  from  beyond  the  grave.  It  was  a 
frightful  thing  to  review  her  journey  from  a  lofty  angel's- 
eye  view. 

Her  existence  looked  very  petty.  Now  that  her  hope 
and  her  senses  were  ended,  she  felt  a  grudge  against  the 
world  that  she  had  got  so  little  out  of.  She  had  tried  to  be 
a  good  woman,  and  her  altruism  had  won  her  such  a  bad 
name  that  if  Dr.  Mosely  should  preach  her  funeral  ser- 
mon he  would  feel  that  he  had  revealed  a  wonderful  spirit 
of  forbearance  in  leaving  it  unmentioned  that  she  was  an 
abandoned  divorced. 

If  she  had  been  actually  guilty  of  an  intrigue  with  Jim 
Dyckman  Dr.  Mosely  would  have  forgiven  her  even  more 
warmly,  because  it  was  a  woman  taken  in  actual  adultery 
who  was  forgiven,  while  Charity  had  tactlessly  fought  the 
charge  and  demanded  vindication  instead  of  winsomely 
appealing  for  pity. 

By  a  roundabout  road  of  self-surrender  she  had  come  to 

the  same  destination  that  she  might  have  reached  by  the 

straight  path  of  self-indulgence.     She  was  perilously  near 

to  resolving  that  she  had  been  a  fool  not  to  have  taken  hap- 

39  6°9 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

piness,  physical  happiness,  first.  A  grand  red  passion 
seemed  so  much  more  beautiful  than  a  petty  blue  asceti- 
cism. 

When  she  got  home  from  the  will-making  session  with 
McNiven  she  began  to  go  over  her  papers  and  close  the 
books  of  her  years.  She  attacked  old  heaps  of  bundles  of 
her  husband's  letters  and  telegrams,  and  burned  them 
with  difficulty  in  her  fireplace. 

She  felt  no  temptation  to  glance  over  them,  though  her 
lip  curled  in  a  grimace  of  sardonic  disgust  to  consider  how 
much  Peter  Cheever  had  been  to  her  and  how  little  he  was 
to  her  now.  The  first  parcels  she  burned  were  addressed 
to  "Miss  Charity  Coe."  How  far  off  it  seemed  since  she 
had  been  called  "  Miss" ! 

She  had  been  a  girl  when  Cheever's  written  and  spoken 
words  inflamed  her.  They  blazed  now  as  she  had  blazed. 
Into  that  holocaust  had  gone  her  youth,  her  illusions,  her 
virginity,  her  bridehood,  her  wifely  trust.  And  all  that 
was  left  was  a  black  char. 

She  came  upon  letters  from  Jim  Dyckman,  also,  a  few. 
She  flung  them  into  the  fire  with  the  rest.  He  had  had 
nothing  from  her  except  friendship  and  girlish  romance  and 
a  grass-widow's  belated  affection.  Crimson  thoughts 
stole  through  her  dark  heart  like  the  lithe  blazes  inter- 
lacing the  letters;  she  wondered  if  she  would  have  done 
better  to  have  followed  desire  and  taken  love  instead  of 
solitude. 

She  knew  that  she  could  have  made  Jim  hers  long  ago 
with  a  little  less  severity,  a  less  harsh  rebuff.  The  Church 
condemned  her  for  openly  divorcing  her  husband.  She 
might  have  kept  him  on  the  leash  and  carried  on  the  affair 
with  Jim  that  Cheever  accused  her  of  if  Jim  had  been  com- 
placent and  stealthy.  Or,  she  might  have  kept  Jim  at  her 
heels  till  she  was  rid  of  Cheever  and  then  have  married 
him.  She  would  have  saved  him  at  least  from  floundering 
through  the  marsh  where  that  Kedzie-o'-the-wisp  had  led 
him  to  ultimate  disaster. 

610 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

And  now  that  she  had  taken  stock  of  her  past  and  put  it 
into  the  fire,  she  felt  strangely  exiled.  She  had  no  past, 
no  present,  and  a  future  all  hazy.  Her  loneliness  was 
complete.  She  had  to  talk  to  some  one,  and  she  telephoned 
to  Jim  Dyckman,  making  her  good-bys  an  excuse. 

It  was  the  first  time  he  had  been  permitted  to  hear  her 
voice  for  weeks,  and  the  lonely  joy  that  cried  out  in  his 
greeting  brought  warm  tears  to  her  dull,  dry  eyes. 

He  heard  her  weeping  and  he  demanded  the  right  to 
come  to  see  her.  She  refused  him  and  cut  off  his  plea, 
hoping  that  he  would  come,  anyway,  and  waiting  tremu- 
lously till  the  door-bell  rang  with  a  forgotten  thrill  of  a 
caller,  a  lover  calling. 

Her  maid,  who  brought  her  Jim's  name,  begged  with  her 
eyes  that  he  should  not  be  turned  away  again.  Charity 
nodded  and  prinked  a  little  and  went  down-stairs  into 
Jim's  arms. 

He  took  her  there  as  if  she  belonged  there  and  she  felt 
that  she  did,  though  she  protested,  feebly: 

"You  are  not  unmarried  yet." 

They  were  in  that  No-Man's-Land.  She  was  neither 
maid,  wife,  nor  widow,  but  divorcee.  He  was  neither 
bachelor,  husband,  nor  widower;  he  was  not  even  a 
divorce".  He  was  a  Nisi  Prius. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  childish  old  fates  played  one  of  their  cheapest 
jokes  on  Jim  Dyckman  when,  after  they  had  dangled 
Charity  Coe  just  out  of  his  reach  for  a  lifetime,  they  flung 
her  at  his  head.  They  do  those  things.  They  waken  the 
Juliets  just  a  moment  too  late  to  save  the  Romeos  and 
themselves. 

Jim  had  revered  Charity  as  far  too  good  for  him,  and  now 
everybody  wondered  if  he  would  do  the  right  thing  by  her. 
Prissy  Atterbury  in  a  burst  of  chivalry  said  it  when  he  said : 

"Jim's  no  gentleman  if  he  doesn't  marry  Charity." 

Pet  put  it  in  a  more  womanly  way : 

' '  Unless  he's  mighty  spry  she'll  nab  him.     Trust  her !' ' 

Among  the  few  people  who  had  caught  a  glimpse  of 
Charity,  no  one  had  been  quite  cruel  enough  to  say  those 
things  to  her  face,  but  Charity  imagined  them.  Housed 
with  her  sick  and  terrified  imagination  for  companion,  she 
had  imagined  nearly  everything  dismal. 

And  now,  when,  by  the  mere  laws  of  gravitation,  she 
had  floated  into  Jim  Dyckman's  arms  for  a  moment,  she 
heard  the  popular  doom  of  them  both  in  the  joke  he 
attempted : 

"  Charity,  I've  got  to  marry  you  to  make  you  an  honest 
woman." 

She  wrenched  free  of  his  embrace  with  a  violence  that 
staggered  him.  He  saw  that  she  was  taking  his  effort  at 
playfulness  seriously,  even  tragically. 

"No,  no,  Jim!"  she  gasped.  " I've  brought  you  enough 
trouble  and  enough  disgrace.  I  won't  let  you  ruin  your 
life  by  marrying  me  out  of  pity." 

612 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Pity!  Good  God!"  Jim  groaned.  "Why,  you  don't 
think  I  meant  that,  do  you?  I  was  just  trying  to  be 
funny,  because  I  was  so  happy.  I'll  promise  never  to 
try  to  be  funny  again.  It  was  like  saying  to  Venus, 
'You're  a  homely  old  thing,  but  I'll  let  you  cook  for 
me';  or  saying  to  —  whoever  it  was  was  the  Goddess 
of  Wisdom,  'You  don't  know  much,  but* —  Why, 
Charity  Coe,  you're  Venus  and  Minerva  and  all  the 
goddesses  rolled  into  one." 

Charity  shook  her  head. 

He  roared:  "If  it's  pity  you're  talking  about,  isn't 
it  about  time  you  had  a  little  for  me?  Life  won't  be 
worth  a  single  continental  damn  to  me  if  I  don't  get 
you." 

Charity  had  needed  something  of  this  sort  for  a  long 
time.  It  sounded  to  her  like  a  serenade  by  the  Boston 
Symphony  Orchestra.  Her  acknowledgment  was  a  tear- 
ful, smileful  giggle-sob : 

"Honestly?" 

"Honest-to-God-ly!" 

"All  right,  as  soon  as  you're  a  free  man  fetch  the  parson, 
for  I'm  pretty  tired  of  being  a  free  woman." 

Jim  had  learned  from  McNiven  that  a  part  of  his  free- 
dom, when  he  got  it,  would  be  a  judicial  denial  of  the  right 
to  surrender  it  for  five  years.  He  had  learned  that  if  he 
wanted  to  marry  Charity  he  must  persuade  her  over  into 
New  Jersey.  It  did  not  please  Jim  to  have  to  follow  the 
example  of  Zada  and  Cheever,  and  it  hit  him  as  a  peculiar 
cruelty  that  he  and  Charity  had  to  accept  not  only  an  un- 
earned increment  of  scandal  in  the  verdict  of  divorce,  but 
also  a  marriage  contrary  to  the  laws  of  New  York. 

New  York  would  respect  the  ceremonies  of  New  Jersey, 
but  there  would  be  a  shadow  on  the  title.  Still,  such  mar- 
riages were  recognized  by  the  public  with  little  question, 
just  as  in  the  countries  where  divorce  is  almost  or  quite 
impossible  society  of  all  grades  has  always  countenanced 
unions  not  too  lightly  entered  into  or  continued.  In  such 

613 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

countries  words  like  "mistress,"  "concubine,"  and  "mor- 
ganatic wife"  take  on  a  decided  respectability  with  a 
touch  of  pathos  rather  than  reproach. 

Jim  had  come  to  beg  Charity  to  accept  a  marriage  with 
an  impediment.  He  had  expected  a  scene  when  he  pro- 
posed a  flight  across  the  river  and  a  return  to  Father 
Knickerbocker  with  a  request  for  pardon.  But  her  light 
suggestion  of  a  religious  ceremony  threw  him  into  confu- 
sion. He  mumbled: 

"Is  a  parson  absolutely  necessary?" 

Charity's  lips  set  into  a  grim  line. 

"  I'll  be  married  by  a  parson  or  I'll  not  be  married  at  all. 
The  Church  has  enough  against  me  on  account  of  my  di- 
vorce and  this  last  ghastly  thing.  To  get  married  outside 
the  Church  would  cut  me  off  entirely  from  everything 
that's  sacred.  There  won't  be  any  difficulty  about  getting 
a  parson,  will  there?" 

"Oh  no,  not  at  all!"  Jim  protested,  "only — oh  no,  not 
at  all,  except — " 

' '  Only  what  ?     Except  what  ? ' ' 

"You'll  have  to  go  to  New  Jersey  to  be  married." 

"Why  should  I?" 

"Entirely  on  my  account,  honey.  It's  because  I'm  in 
disgrace." 

This  way  of  putting  it  brought  her  over  that  sill  with  a 
rush.  To  be  able  to  endure  something  for  him  was  a  pre- 
cious ability.  She  hugged  him  devoutly,  then  put  his  arms 
away. 

When  he  left  her  he  had  a  brilliant  inspiration.  He 
thought  how  soothing  it  would  be  to  her  bruised  heart, 
what  carron-oil  to  her  blistered  reputation,  if  he  got  Doctor 
Mosely  to  perform  the  ceremony. 

Jim  was  so  delighted  with  the  stroke  of  genius  that  he 
went  immediately  to  the  pastor's  house.  The  dear  old 
man  greeted  him  with  a  subdued  warmth. 

"This  is  an  unusual  privilege,  dear  boy.  I  haven't 
seen  you  for — oh,  ever  so  long.  Of  course,  I  have  read 

614 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

of  you — er — that  is — what — to  what  am  I  indebted 
for—' 

"You  perform  marriages,  don't  you?" 

"That  is  one  of  my  perilous  prerogatives.  But,  of 
course,  I  can't  guarantee  how  well  my  marriages  will  wear 
in  these  restless  times." 

Jim  braved  a  flippancy:  "Then,  being  an  honest  dealer, 
you  replace  any  damaged  article,  of  course?" 

"  I  am  afraid  I  could  hardly  go  so  far  as  that." 

"Could  you  go  as  far  as  New  Jersey?" 

"In  my  time  I  have  ventured  into  Macedonia.  But 
why  do  you  ask?" 

"You  see,  in  a  day  or  two,  I'll  be  free  from  my  present — 
that  is,  my  absent  wife;  and  I  wanted  to  know  if  you  could 
come  over  and  marry  me." 

"But  I  thought — I  fear — do  you  mean  to  say  you  are 
marrying  some  young  woman  from  over  there?" 

"I'm  marrying  Charity  Coe." 

"My  dear,  dear  boy!  Really!  You  can't,  you  know! 
She  has  been  divorced  and  so  have  you." 

"Yes,  all  quite  legally." 

"And  you  ask  me  to  join  your  hands  in  holy  matri- 
mony?" 

"No,  just  plain  legal  matrimony.  I  was  joined  in  holy 
matrimony  once,  and  I  don't  insist  on  that  part  of  it 
again.  But  Charity  wants  a  clergyman  and  I  don't 
mind. ' ' 

"Really,  my  son,  you  know  better  than  to  assume  this 
tone  to  me.  You've  been  away  from  church  too  long." 

"Well,  if  you  want  to  get  me  back,  fasten  me  to  Charity. 
You  know  she's  the  best  woman  that  ever  lived." 

"She  is  a  trifle  too  rebellious  to  merit  that  tribute,  I 
fear." 

"Well,  give  her  another  chance.  She  has  had  enough 
hard  knocks.  You  ought  to  go  to  her  rescue." 

"  Do  you  think  that  to  be  the  duty  of  the  Church?" 

"  It  used  to  be,  didn't  it?  But  don't  get  me  into  theol- 

615 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

ogy.     I  can't  swim.     The  point  is,  will  you  marry  Charity 
tome?" 

"No!" 

"  Wouldn't  you  marry  her  to  any  man?" 

"Only  to  one." 

"Who's  that?" 

"Her  former  husband." 

"But  he's  married  to  another  woman." 

"  I  do  not  recognize  that  marriage." 

"Good  Lord!  Would  you  like  to  see  Charity  married 
to  Cheever.  again?" 

"Yes." 

"To  Peter  Cheever?" 

"Yes." 

"Whew!     Say,  Doctor,  that's  going  it  pretty  strong." 

"I  do  not  care  to  discuss  the  sacraments  with  you  in 
your  present  humor." 

"Did  you  read  the  trial  of  that  woman  last  week  who 
killed  her  husband  and  was  acquitted?  Mrs.  What's-her- 
name?  You  must  have  read  it." 

"  I  pay  little  attention  to  the  newspaper  scandals." 

"You  ought  to — they're  what  make  life  what  it  is. 
Aifyway,  this  woman  had  a  husband  who  turned  out  bad. 
He  was  a  grafter  and  a  gambler,  a  drunkard  and  a  brute. 
He  beat  her  and  their  five  children  horribly,  and  finally  she 
divorced  him.  The  law  gave  her  her  freedom  in  five 
minutes  and  there  was  no  fuss  about  it,  because  she  was 
poor,  and  the  newspapers  have  no  room  for  poor  folks' 
marriage  troubles — unless  they  up  and  kill  somebody. 

"Well,  this  woman  was  getting  along  all  right  when 
some  good  religious  people  got  at  her  about  the  sin  of  her 
divorce  and  the  broken  sacrament,  and  they  kept  at  her 
till  finally  she  consented  to  remarry  her  husband — for  the 
children's  sake!  There  was  great  rejoicing  by  everybody 
— except  the  poor  woman.  After  the  remarriage  he  re- 
turned to  his  old  ways  and  began  to  beat  her  again,  and 
finally  she  emptied  a  revolver  into  him." 

616 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"Horrible,  horrible!" 

"Wasn't  it?  The  jury  disagreed  on  the  first  trial. 
But  on  the  second  the  churchpeople  who  persuaded  her  to 
remarry  him  went  on  the  stand  and  confessed — or  per- 
haps you  would  say,  boasted — that  they  persuaded  her  to 
remarry  him.  And  then  she  was  acquitted.  And  that's 
why  the  civil  law  has  always  had  to  protect  people  from — " 

Doctor  Mosely  turned  purple  at  the  implication  and  the 
insolence.  He  scolded  Jim  loftily,  but  Jim  did  not  cower. 
He  was  upheld  by  his  own  religion,  which  was  Charity 
Coe's  right  to  vindication  and  happiness. 

At  length  he  realized  that  he  was  harming  Charity  and 
not  Doctor  Mosely.  Suddenly  he  was  apologizing  humbly : 

"I'm  very  much  ashamed  of  myself.  You're  an  older 
man  and  venerable,  and  I — I  oughtn't  to  have  forgotten 
that." 

"You  ought  not." 

"I'll  do  any  penance  you  say,  if  you'll  only  marry 
Charity  and  me." 

"  Don't  speak  of  that  again." 

He  thought  of  his  old  friend  and  attorney,  money.  He 
put  that  forward. 

"  I'll  pay  anything." 

"Mr.  Dyckman!" 

"I'll  give  the  church  a  solid  gold  reredos  or  contribute 
any  sum  to  any  alms — " 

"  Please  go.     I  cannot  tolerate  any  more." 

Jim  left  the  old  man  in  such  agitation  that  a  reporter 
named  Hallard,  who  shadowed  him,  feeling  in  his  journalis- 
tic bones  that  a  big  story  would  break  about  him  soon, 
noted  his  condition  and  called  on  Doctor  Mosely.  He  was 
still  shaken  with  the  storm  of  defending  his  ideals 
from  profanation,  and  Hallard  easily  drew  from  him  an 
admission  that  Mr.  Dyckman  was  bent  upon  matri- 
mony, also  a  scathing  diatribe  on  the  remarriage  of 
divorced  persons  as  one  of  the  signs  of  the  increasing 
degeneracy  of  public  morals. 

617 


WE   CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Hallard's  paper  carried  a  lovely  exclusive  story  the  next 
morning  in  noisy  head-lines.  The  other  newspapers 
enviously  plagiarized  it  and  set  their  news-sleuths  on 
Jim's  trail.  The  clergy  of  all  denominations  took  up  the 
matter  as  a  theme  of  vital  timeliness. 

Jim  and  Charity  were  beautifully  suited  to  the  purposes 
of  both  sorts;  the  newspapers  that  pulpiteered  the  news 
and  wrote  highly  moral  editorials  for  sensation's  sake ;  and 
the  pulpiteers  who  shouted  head-lines  and  yellow  journal- 
ism from  their  rostrums,  more  for  the  purpose  of  self- 
advertisement  than  for  any  devotion  to  Christly  principles 
of  sympathy  and  gentle  comprehension. 

Jim  was  stupefied  to  find  himself  once  more  pilloried  and 
portraited  and  ballyhooed  in  the  newspapers.  But  he 
tightened  his  jaws  and  refused  to  be  howled  from  his  path 
by  any  coyote  pursuit. 

His  next  thought  was  of  the  New  Jersey  clergyman  who 
had  married  him  to  Kedzie.  He  motored  over  to  him. 

Jim  had  told  Dr.  Mosely  that  clergymen  ought  to  keep  up 
with  the  news.  He  found,  to  his  regret,  that  the  New 
Jersey  dominie  did. 

He  remembered  Jim  well  and  heard  him  out,  but  shook 
his  head.  He  explained  why,  patiently.  He  had  been 
greatly  impressed  by  the  action  of  the  House  of  Deputies  of 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  convened  at  St.  Louis  in 
October,  1916.  A  new  canon  had  been  proposed  declaring 
that  "no  marriage  shall  be  solemnized  in  this  Church  be- 
tween parties,  either  of  whom  has  a  husband  or  wife  still 
living,  who  has  been  divorced  for  any  cause  arising  after 
marriage." 

This  meant  that  the  innocent  party,  as  well  as  the  guilty, 
should  be  denied  another  chance.  The  canon  had  been 
hotly  debated — so  hotly  that  one  preacher  referred  to  any 
wedding  of  divorced  persons  as  "filth  marriage,"  and 
others  were  heard  insisting  that  even  Christ's  acceptance 
of  adultery  as  a  cause  for  divorce  was  an  interpolation  in 
the  text,  and  that  the  whole  passage  concerning  the  woman 

6x8 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

taken  in  adultery  was  absent  from  some  ancient  manu- 
scripts. A  halt  was  called  to  this  dangerous  line  of  argu- 
ment, and  one  clergyman  protested  that  "the  question  of 
the  integrity  of  the  Scriptures  is  more  important  than  the 
question  of  marriage  and  divorce."  Another  clergyman 
pleaded:  "An  indissoluble  marriage  is  a  fiction.  What  is 
the  use  of  tying  the  Church  up  to  a  fiction?  It  is  our 
business  to  teach  and  not  to  legislate."  Eventually  the 
canon  was  defeated.  But  many  of  the  clergy  were  de- 
termined to  follow  it,  anyway. 

In  any  case,  not  only  was  Charity  divorced,  but  she  had 
been  involved  in  Jim's  divorce,  and  Jim,  as  the  New  Jersey 
preacher  pointed  out  to  him,  was  denied  remarriage  even 
by  the  civil  law  of  New  York.  The  appeal  to  New  Jersey 
was  plainly  a  subterfuge,  and  he  begged  Jim  to  give 
Charity  up. 

"You  don't  know  what  you  ask,"  Jim  cried.  " I'll  find 
somebody  with  a  heart !"  And  he  stormed  out. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

JIM  reported  to  Charity  his  two  defeats  and  the  lan- 
guage he  had  heard  and  read.  Charity's  conscience 
was  so  clean  that  her  reaction  was  one  of  wrath.  She  pon- 
dered her  future  and  Jim's.  She  could  not  see  what 
either  of  them  had  done  so  vile  that  they  should  be  sen- 
tenced to  celibacy  for  life,  or  more  probably  to  an  eventual 
inevitable  horror  of  outward  conformity  and  secret  in- 
trigue. 

She  knew  too  many  people  whose  wedlock  had  been  a 
lifelong  tolerance  of  infamy  on  the  part  of  one  or  both. 
Some  of  the  bitterest  enemies  of  divorce  were  persons  who 
had  found  it  quite  unnecessary.  She  felt  that  to  forgive 
and  to  forget  became  so  anti-social  a  habit  in  matrimony 
that  no  divorce  could  be  worse. 

She  was  afraid  of  herself,  too.  She  dared  not  trust 
herself  with  life  alone.  She  was  too  human  to  be  safe. 
Marriage  with  Jim  would  protect  him  and  her  from  each 
other  and  from  the  numberless  temptations  awaiting  them. 
Finally,  there  were  no  children  in  the  matter. 

All  arguments  prove  too  much  and  too  little,  and  in  the 
end  become  simply  our  own  briefs  for  our  own  inclinations. 
Charity's  mood  being  what  it  was,  she  adopted  the  line  of 
reasoning  that  led  to  her  own  ambition.  She  spent  much 
time  on  her  knees,  but  communed  chiefly  with  herself,  and 
rose  always  confirmed  in  her  belief  that  to  marry  Jim 
Dyckman  was  the  next  great  business  of  her  existence. 

Jim,  too,  had  grown  unwontedly  earnest.  The  mar- 
riage denounced  by  the  religious  had  taken  on  a  religious 

620 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

quality.  He  was  inclined  to  battle  for  it  as  for  a  creed,  as 
the  clergymen  had  battled  vainly  for  the  new  canon. 

He,  too,  felt  a  spirit  of  genuflexion  and  wanted  to  speak 
to  God  personally;  to  appeal  to  Him  by  a  private  petition 
as  to  a  king  whose  ministers  denied  mercy. 

By  his  bed  he  sank  down  and  prayed.  He  was  very 
solemn,  but  too  uncertain  of  the  solemn  voice  to  use  it. 
He  half  whispered,  half  thought: 

"O  God,  I  don't  know  how  you  want  me  to  act.  I 
only  know  that  my  heart  keeps  on  calling  for  Charity  and  a 
home  with  her,  and  children  some  day.  There'll  never  be 
any  children  for  either  of  us  if  we  obey  the  Church.  For- 
give me  if  I  doubt  what  these  preachers  tell  me,  but  I  just 
can't  believe  it  to  be  your  voice.  If  it  is  not  your  voice, 
what  is  it  that  makes  me  feel  it  such  a  sin  not  to  marry 
Charity?  I'm  going  to,  God,  unless  you  stop  me.  I  may 
be  making  a  big  mistake,  but  if  I  am  you'll  understand. 
You  will  not  be  mad  at  me  any  more  than  I  am  mad  at  my 
dog  when  he  misunderstands  me,  for  I  know  he  is  a  good 
dog  and  wants  to  do  what  I  want  him  to  if  he  can  only 
learn  what  it  is.  If  it  is  not  your  will  that  I  should 
marry  Charity  tell  me  now  so  that  I  can't  misunder- 
stand, for  if  you  don't  I'm  going  ahead.  If  I  have  to 
take  the  punishment  afterward,  I'll  take  it  rather  than 
leave  that  poor  soul  alone.  Bless  her,  O  God,  and  help 
me.  Amen." 

And  now  both  Charity  and  Jim  were  ready  for  battle. 
She  set  her  hand  in  Jim's  and  said  that  she  would  marry 
him  in  spite  of  all,  but  that  she  would  not  give  up  her  hope 
of  being  married  by  one  of  her  own  faith  until  she  had 
canvassed  the  entire  clergy. 

And  then  began  one  of  the  strangest  quests  ever  under- 
taken, even  in  this  transitional  period  of  matrimony  as  an 
institution — a  quest  so  strange  that  it  would  seem  impos- 
sible if  it  had  not  actually  happened.  Jim  and  Charity 
hunted  a  preacher  and  the  press  hunted  them. 

While  the  journalists  waited  for  the  United  States  to 
621 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

enter  the  war  with  soldiers,  the  reporters  kept  in  practice 
by  scouting  after  Jim  Dyckman  and  sniping  him  when- 
ever he  showed  his  head.  He  succeeded  only  in  getting 
his  resignation  from  his  regiment  accepted.  He  planned 
to  sail  for  France  and  fight  for  France  as  soon  as  he  had 
married  Charity. 

When  he  failed  to  secure  a  minister  by  letter  or  tele- 
gram he  set  forth  to  make  personal  visits.  Sometimes 
Charity  went  with  him  so  that  there  should  be  no  delay  or 
time  for  a  change  of  mood. 

From  city  to  town  they  went,  from  village  to  city, 
searching  for  an  Episcopalian  clergyman  to  say  the  desired 
words.  Jim  offered  any  bribery  that  might  suffice,  but 
ahead  of  him  went  his  notoriety. 

Many  a  warm-hearted  clergyman  felt  sympathy  for  Jim 
and  Charity  and  longed  to  end  their  curious  pilgrimage, 
but  dared  not  brave  the  wrath  of  his  fellow-preachers  or 
accept  the  unwelcome  fame  that  awaited  his  blessing,  and 
the  discipline  that  would  be  meted  out  to  him. 

Jim's  picture  was  so  widely  published  that  when  he 
eluded  one  crowd  another  posse  sprang  up  wherever  he  re- 
appeared. His  entrance  into  a  town  was  a  signal  for  the 
clergy  to  scurry  to  cover.  Some  of  them,  to  put  themselves 
on  record  and  insure  themselves  against  temptation,  de- 
nounced Jim  and  his  attachee  as  traveling  fiends,  emissa- 
ries of  the  devil. 

The  wealth  that  was  their  drag  was  proclaimed  as  their 
weapon. 

The  storm  grew  fiercer  and  the  language  more  unre- 
strained. Jim  and  Charity,  reading  in  the  papers  the 
terms  applied  to  them,  cowered  and  shuddered. 

Charity  grew  haggard  and  peevish.  Her  obstinacy  was 
hardly  more  than  a  lockjaw  of  fright,  the  stubbornness  of  a 
drowning  child  afraid  to  let  go. 

Jim  was  almost  equally  sick.  The  newspaper  pursuit 
covered  him  with  chagrin.  His  good  old  name  was  pre- 
cious to  him,  and  he  knew  how  his  mother  and  father  were 

622 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

suffering  at  its  abuse,  as  well  as  for  him  in  his  fugitive 
distress. 

Jim's  mother  was  very  much  mother.  She  took  into 
her  breast  every  arrow  shot  at  him.  When  she  saw  him 
she  held  him  fiercely  in  her  arms,  her  big  frame  aching  with 
a  Valkyrian  ardor  to  lift  the  brave  warrior  on  a  winged 
horse  and  carry  him  away  from  the  earth. 

It  is  hard  for  the  best  of  mothers  to  love  even  the  best  of 
daughters-in-law,  for  how  can  two  fires  prosper  on  the  same 
fuel?  It  had  been  a  little  too  hard  for  Mrs.  Dyckman  to 
love  Kedzie.  It  was  all  too  easy  to  hate  her  now  and  to 
denounce  her  till  even  Jim  winced. 

"Don't  think  of  her,  mother,"  he  pleaded.  "Don't 
let's  speak  of  her  any  more.  She's  only  one  of  my  past 
mistakes.  You  never  mention  those — why  not  let  her 
drop?" 

"All  right,  honey.  You  must  forgive  me.  I'm  only  a 
sour  old  woman  and  it  breaks  my  heart  to  think  of  that 
little,  common — " 

"There  you  go  again,"  her  husband  growled,  sick  with 
grief,  too.  "Let  the  little  cat  go." 

"What's  killing  me,"  Jim  said,  "is  thinking  of  what  I've 
brought  on  Charity.  It  makes  me  want  to  die." 

"But  you'll  have  to  live  for  her  sake — and  your  moth- 
er's," said  his  mother.  "Charity's  the  only  woman  I 
know  that's  worth  fighting  for.  I've  known  her  since  she 
was  born  and  I  never  knew  her  to  do  or  say  one  single 
petty  thing.  She  hasn't  got  one  of  those  qualities  that 
women  hate  so  much  in  women." 

"Then  why  should  she  have  to  suffer  such  persecution?" 
Jim  cried.  "  My  God!  is  chivalry  dead  in  the  world?" 

His  father  flung  his  arm  around  him  and  hugged  him 
roughly.  "Not  while  there's  a  man  like  you  to  fight  for  a 
woman  like  her.  I  never  was  so  proud  of  anything  as  I 
am  of  being  the  father  of  a  big  fellow  like  you,  who  can 
make  a  battle  like  yours  for  love  of  a  woman." 

"But  why  should  I  have  to  fight  for  her?  Whose  busi- 
623 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

ness  is  it  but  ours  that  we  want  to  get  married  decently 
and  live  together  quietly?  Isn't  this  a  free  country?" 

"Only  the  press  is  free,"  said  his  father.  "And  poor 
Charity  is  getting  nothing  more  than  women  have  always 
got  who've  dared  to  ask  for  their  own  way.  They  used  to 
throw  'em  to  the  lions,  or  bowstring  'em  in  the  harems. 
And  in  the  days  of  real  chivalry  they  burned  'em  at  the 
stake  or  locked  'em  up  in  convents  or  castles.  But  don't 
you  worry,  Jim,  Charity  has  you  for  a  champion  and  she's 
mighty  lucky.  Go  on  and  fight  the  muckers  and  the  muck- 
rakers,  and  don't  let  the  reporters  or  the  preachers  scare 
you  away  from  doing  the  one  right  thing." 

The  newspapers  kept  within  the  almost  boundless 
limits  of  the  libel  law.  Jim  had  publicity  enough,  and  he 
did  not  care  to  add  to  it  by  a  libel  suit,  nor  could  he  bring 
himself  to  make  a  personal  attack  on  any  of  his  pursuers. 
His  discretion  took  on  the  look  of  poltroonery  and  he 
groveled  in  shame. 

One  bitter  day  he  motored  with  Charity  to  a  village 
where  a  clergyman  lived  who  had  wearied  of  the  persecu- 
tion and  volunteered  his  offices.  When  they  arrived  his 
wife  told  Jim  that  he  was  stricken  ill.  He  had  fretted  him- 
self into  his  bed. 

Jim  bundled  Charity  into  his  car  and  set  forth  again  in 
a  storm.  The  car  skidded  and  turned  turtle  in  a  ditch. 
By  some  chance  neither  of  them  was  more  than  bruised 
and  muddied.  The  hamper  of  food  was  spilled  and 
broken  and  they  had  hours  to  wait  by  the  roadside  while 
a  wrecking  crew  came  from  the  nearest  city  to  right 
the  car. 

While  they  waited,  forlorn  and  shivering,  like  two 
tramps  rather  than  like  two  malefactors  of  great  wealth, 
their  hunger  drove  them  to  banquet  on  their  little  store. 

Jim,  gnawing  at  a  crust  of  suspicious  cleanliness,  studied 
Charity  where  she  huddled  in  the  shelter  of  a  dripping 
tree,  like  a  queen  driven  forth  into  exile.  And  the  tears 
poured  from  his  eyes  and  salted  the  bread.  He  had  eaten 

624 


WE   CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

the  food  of  his  own  tears.  He  had  tasted  life  and  found 
it  bitter. 

When  the  men  came  with  the  ropes  and  the  tackle  neces- 
sary and  slowly  righted  the  car  he  found  that  its  engine 
ran  again  and  he  had  speed  and  strength  once  more  as  his 
servants.  He  tried  to  encourage  Charity  with  a  figure  of 
speech. 

"They've  got  us  ditched,  honey,  for  a  while,  but  we'll 
get  righted  soon  and  then  life  will  be  as  smooth  as 
smooth." 

She  tried  to  smile  for  his  sake,  but  she  had  finished  with 
hope.- 


CHAPTER  XVII 

WHILE  Jim  and  Charity  sat  by  the  roadside  the 
Marchioness  of  Strathdene,  nee  Kedzie  Thropp,  of 
Nimrim,  sat  on  a  fine  cushion  and  salted  with  her  tears 
the  toasted  English  crumpet  she  was  having  with  her  tea. 

She  had  been  married  indeed,  but  the  same  ban  that  fell 
upon  Jim's  remarriage  had  forbidden  her  the  wedding  of 
her  dreams.  She  was  the  innocent  party  to  the  divorce 
and  she  was  married  in  a  church.  But  it  was  not  of  the 
Episcopal  creed,  which  she  was  now  calling  the  Church  of 
England.  Kedzie-like,  she  still  wanted  what  she  could  not 
get  and  grieved  over  what  she  got.  It  is  usual  to  berate 
people  of  her  sort,  but  they  are  no  more  to  be  blamed  than 
other  dyspeptics.  Souls,  like  stomachs,  cannot  always  co- 
ordinate appetite  and  digestion. 

Kedzie  had,  however,  found  a  husband  who  would  be 
permanently  precious  to  her,  since  she  would  never  be  cer- 
tain of  him.  Like  her,  he  was  restless,  volatile,  and  main- 
tained his  equilibrium  as  a  bicycle  does  only  by  keeping  on 
going.  He  was  mad  to  be  off  to  the  clouds  of  France. 
There  was  a  delay  because  ships  were  sailing  infrequently, 
and  their  departure  was  kept  secret.  Passengers  had  to  go 
aboard  and  wait. 

Bidding  "bon  voyage"  was  no  longer  the  stupid  dock- 
party  platitude  it  had  been.  It  was  bidding  "good-by" 
with  faint  hope  of  "  aw  revoir."  Ladies  going  abroad,  even 
brides,  thought  little  of  their  deck  costumes  so  long  as  they 
included  a  well-tailored  life-preserver. 

Mrs.  Thropp  stared  at  Kedzie  and  breathed  hard  in  her 
creaking  satin.  And  Adna  looked  out  at  her  over  the  high 

626 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

collar  that  took  a  nip  at  his  Adam's  apple  every  time  he 
swallowed  it. 

The  old  parents  were  sad  with  an  unwonted  sorrow. 
They  had  money  at  last  and  they  had  even  been  hauled  up 
close  to  the  aristocracy  as  the  tail  to  Kite  Kedzie.  But 
now  they  had  time  to  realize  that  they  were  to  lose  this 
pretty  thing  they  had  somehow  been  responsible  for  yet 
unable  to  control.  They  had  nearly  everything  else,  so 
their  child  was  to  be  taken  from  them. 

Suddenly  they  loved  her  with  a  grave-side  ache.  She 
was  their  baby,  their  little  girl,  their  youth,  their  beauty, 
their  romance,  their  daughter.  And  perhaps  in  a  few  days 
she  would  be  shattered  and  dead  in  a  torpedoed  ship. 
Perhaps  in  some  high-flung  lifeboat  she  would  be  crouching 
all  drenched  and  stuttering  with  cold  and  dying  with 
terror. 

Mrs.  Thropp  broke  into  big  sobs  that  jolted  her  sides 
and  she  fell  over  against  Adna,  who  did  not  know  how  to 
comfort  her.  He  held  her  in  arms  like  a  bear's  and  patted 
her  with  heavy  paws,  but  she  felt  on  her  head  the  drip-drip 
of  his  tears.  And  thus  Kedzie  by  her  departure  brought 
them  together  in  a  remarriage,  a  poor  sort  of  honeymoon 
wherein  they  had  little  but  the  bitter-sweet  privilege  of 
helping  each  other  suffer. 

The  picture  of  their  welded  misery  brought  Kedzie  a  re- 
turn, too,  to  her  child  hunger  for  parentage.  She  wanted 
a  mother  and  a  father  and  she  could  not  have  them.  She 
went  to  put  her  exquisite  arms  about  them  and  the  three  so 
dissimilar  heads  were  grotesquely  united. 

The  Marquess  of  Strathdene  pretended  to  be  disgusted 
and  stormed  out.  But  that  was  because  he  did  not  want 
to  be  seen  making  an  ass  of  himself,  weeping  as  Bottom  the 
Weaver  wept.  He  flung  away  his  salted  and  extinguished 
cigarette  and  wondered  what  was  the  matter  with  the 
world  where  nothing  ever  came  out  right. 

His  own  mother  was  weeping  all  the  time  and  her  letters 
told  always  of  new  losses.  The  newspapers  kept  printing 

627 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

stories  of  Strathdene's  chums  being  put  away  in  a  trench 
or  a  hospital,  or  falling  from  the  clouds  dead. 

And  starvation  was  coming  everywhere;  in  England 
there  was  talk  of  famine,  and  all  America  had  gone  mad 
with  fear  of  it.  But  still  the  war  went  on  in  a  universal 
suicide  which  nobody  could  stop,  and  peace,  the  one  thing 
that  everybody  wanted,  was  wanted  by  nobody  on  any 
terms  that  anybody  else  would  even  discuss. 

As  he  agonized  with  his  philosophy  and  lighted  another 
cigarette,  the  street  roared  like  hurricane.  Below  the 
windows  the  French  Mission  was  proceeding  up  Fifth 
Avenue.  Mare'chal  Joseph  Joffre  and  Rene  Viviani  were 
awakening  tumult  in  the  American  heart  and  stirring  it  to 
the  rescue  of  France  and  of  England  and  of  Belgium  and 
Italy,  with  what  outcome  none  could  know.  One  could 
only  know  that  at  last  the  great  flood  of  war  had  encircled 
the  United  States,  reducing  it  to  the  old  primeval  problems 
and  emotions:  how  to  get  enough  to  eat,  how  to  get  weap- 
ons, how  to  find  and  beat  down  the  enemy,  how  to  endure 
the  farewells  of  fathers,  mothers,  sons,  sisters,  sweethearts, 
wives.  Everything  was  complex  beyond  understanding 
for  minds,  but  things  were  very  simple  for  hearts ;  they  had 
only  to  ache  with  sorrow  or  wrath. 

The  Marchioness  of  Strathdene  and  her  airy  husband 
reached  England  without  being  submarined,  and  there,  to 
her  great  surprise,  Kedzie  found  a  whole  new  universe  of 
things  not  quite  right.  "If  only  it  were  otherwise!"  was 
still  the  perpetual  alibi  of  contentment. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

FROM  the  glory  of  the  festivals  of  alliance  Jim  Dyck- 
man  and  Charity  Coe  were  absent.  Both  were  so 
eager  to  be  abroad  in  the  battle  that  they  did  not  miss  the 
flag-waving.  But  they  wanted  to  cross  the  sea  together. 
The  importance  of  this  ambition  tempted  Charity  to  a 
desperate  conclusion  that  the  formalities  of  her  union  with 
Jim  did  not  matter  so  long  as  they  were  together.  Yet  the 
risk  of  death  was  so  inescapable  and  she  was  so  imbued 
with  churchliness  that  her  dreams  were  filled  with  visions 
of  herself  dead  and  buried  in  unhallowed  ground,  of  herself 
and  Jim  standing  at  heaven's  gate  and  turned  away  for 
lack  of  a  blessing  on  their  union. 

Her  soul  was  about  ready  to  break  completely,  but  her 
body  gave  out  first.  It  was  in  a  small  town  in  New  Jersey 
that  they  found  themselves  weather-bound. 

The  sky  seemed  to  rain  ice-water  and  they  took  refuge 
in  the  village's  one  hotel,  a  dismal  place  near  the  freight- 
station.  The  entrance  was  up  a  narrow  staircase,  past  a 
bar-room  door. 

The  rooms  were  ill  furnished  and  ill  kept,  and  the  noise 
of  screaming  locomotives  and  jangling  freight-cars  was 
incessant.  But  there  was  no  other  hospitality  to  be  had 
in  the  town. 

Jim  left  Charity  at  her  door  and  begged  her  to  sleep. 
Her  dull  eyes  and  doddering  head  promised  for  her. 

He  went  to  his  own  room  and  laughed  at  the  cheap 
wretchedness  of  it:  the  cracked  pitcher  in  the  cracked 
bowl,  the  washstand  whose  lower  door  would  not  stay 
open,  the  two  yellow  towels  in  the  rack,  the  bureau,  the 

629 


WE    CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

cane  chairs,  and  the  iron  bed  with  its  thin  mattress  and 
neglected  drapery. 

He  lowered  himself  into  a  rickety  rocker  and  looked  out 
through  the  dirtier  window  at  the  dirty  town.  The  only 
place  to  go  was  to  sleep,  and  he  tried  to  make  the  journey. 
But  a  ferocious  resentment  at  the  idiocy  of  things  drove 
away  repose. 

He  resolved  that  he  had  been  a  fool  long  enough.  He 
would  give  up  the  vain  effort  to  conform,  and  would  take 
Charity  without  sanction.  He  was  impatient  to  go  to  her 
then  and  there,  but  he  dared  not  approach  her  till  she  had 
rested. 

He  remembered  a  book  he  had  picked  up  at  one  of  their 
villages  of  denial.  It  was  one  of  those  numberless  books 
everybody  is  supposed  to  have  read.  For  that  reason  he 
had  found  it  almost  impossible  to  begin.  But  he  was 
desperate  enough  to  read  even  a  classic.  He  hoped  that 
it  would  be  a  soporific.  That  was  his  definition  of  a  classic. 

The  book  was  the  Reverend  Charles  Kingsley's  Hypatia. 
Jim  was  down  on  the  Episcopal  clergy  one  and  all,  and  he 
read  with  prejudice,  skipping  the  preface,  of  course,  which 
set  forth  the  unusual  impulse  of  a  churchman  to  help  the 
Church  of  his  own  day  by  pointing  out  the  crimes  and  errors 
of  the  Church  of  an  earlier  day;  a  too,  too  rare  appeal  to 
truth  for  the  sake  of  salvation  by  the  way  of  truth. 

As  Jim  glanced  angrily  through  the  early  pages,  the  pict- 
ures of  life  in  the  fifth  century  caught  and  quickened  his 
gritty  eyes.  He  skimmed  the  passages  that  did  not  hold 
him,  but  as  the  hours  went  on  he  grew  more  unable  to 
let  go. 

The  sacred  lunch  hour  passed  by  ignored.  The  rain 
beat  down  on  the  roof  as  the  words  rained  up  from  the 
page.  The  character  of  that  eminently  wise  and  beautiful 
and  good  Hypatia  seemed  to  be  Charity  in  ancient  cos- 
tume. The  hostility  of  the  grimy  churchmen  of  that  day 
infuriated  him.  He  cursed  and  growled  as  he  read. 

The  persecution  of  Hypatia  wrought  him  to  such  wrath 

630 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

that  he  wanted  to  turn  back  the  centuries  and  go  to  her 
defense.  He  breathed  hard  as  he  came  to  the  last  of  the 
book  and  read  of  the  lynching  of  Hypatia,  the  attack  of  the 
Christians  upon  her  chariot,  the  dragging  of  her  exquisite 
body  through  the  streets,  and  even  into  the  church,  and  up 
to  the  altar,  up  to  the  foot  of  "the  colossal  Christ  watching 
unmoved  from  off  the  wall,  his  right  hand  raised  to  give  a 
blessing — or  a  curse?" 

Jim  panted  as  Philammon  did,  tracing  her  through  the 
streets  by  the  fragments  of  her  torn  robes  and  fighting 
through  the  mob  in  vain  to  reach  her  and  shield  her.  He 
became  Philammon  and  saw  not  words  on  a  page,  but  a 
tragedy  that  lived  again. 

She  shook  herself  free  from  her  tormentors,  and,  springing 
back,  rose  for  one  moment  to  her  full  height,  naked,  snow-white 
against  the  dusky  mass  around— shame  and  indignation  in  those 
wide  clear  eyes,  but  not  a  stain  of  fear.  With  one  hand  she 
clasped  her  golden  locks  around  her;  the  other  long  white  arm 
was  stretched  upward  toward  the  great  still  Christ,  appealing — 
and  who  dare  say,  in  vain? — from  man  to  God.  Her  lips  were 
opened  to  speak;  but  the  words  that  should  have  come  from 
them  reached  God's  ear  alone;  for  in  an  instant  Peter  struck  her 
down,  the  dark  mass  closed  over  her  again  .  .  .  and  then  wail 
on  wail,  long,  wild,  ear-piercing,  rang  along  the  vaulted  roofs 
and  thrilled  like  the  trumpet  of  avenging  angels  through  Philam- 
mon's  ears. 

Crushed  against  a  pillar,  unable  to  move  in  the  dense  mass, 
he  pressed  his  hands  over  his  ears.  He  could  not  shut  out  those 
shrieks!  When  would  they  end?  What  in  the  name  of  the  God 
of  mercy  were  they  doing?  Tearing  her  piecemeal?  Yes,  and 
worse  than  that.  And  still  the  shrieks  rang  on,  and  still  the 
great  Christ  looked  down  on  Philammon  with  that  calm,  intol- 
erable eye,  and  would  not  turn  away.  And  over  His  head  was 
written  in  the  rainbow,  "I  am  the  same,  yesterday,  to-day,  and 
forever!"  The  same  as  He  was  in  Judea  of  old,  Philammon? 
Then  what  are  these,  and  in  whose  temple?  And  he  covered 
his  face  with  his  hands,  and  longed  to  die. 

It  was  over.  The  shrieks  had  died  away  into  moans;  the 
moans  to  silence.  How  long  had  he  been  there?  An  hour,  or 
an  eternity?  Thank  God  it  was  over!  For  her  sake — but  for 
theirs? 

631 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

Startled  by  the  vividness  of  the  murder,  Jim  looked  up 
from  the  book,  thinking  that  he  had  heard  indeed  the 
shrieks  of  Charity  in  a  death-agony.  The  walls  seemed  to 
quiver  still  with  their  reverberation. 

He  put  down  the  book  in  terror  and  saw  where  he  was. 
It  was  like  waking  from  a  nightmare.  He  was  glad  to  find 
that  he  was  not  in  a  temple  of  ancient  Alexandria,  but  in 
even  that  dingy  New  Jersey  inn. 

He  wondered  if  Charity  had  not  died.  He  hesitated  to 
go  to  her  door  and  knock.  She  needed  sleep  so  much  that 
he  hardly  dared  to  risk  waking  her,  even  to  assure  himself 
that  she  was  alive. 

He  went  to  the  window  and  saw  two  men  under  umbrel- 
las talking  in  the  yard  between  the  hotel  wings.  They 
would  not  have  been  laughing  as  they  were  if  they  had 
heard  shrieks. 

His  eye  was  caught  by  a  window  opposite  his.  There 
sat  Charity  in  a  heavy  bath-robe;  her  hair  was  down;  she 
had  evidently  dropped  into  the  chair  by  the  open  window 
and  fallen  asleep. 

Jim  stared  at  her  and  was  reminded  of  how  he  had  stared 
at  Kedzie  on  his  other  wedding  journey.  Only,  Kedzie 
had  been  his  bride,  and  Charity  was  not  yet,  and  might 
never  be.  Kedzie  was  girlish  against  an  auroral  sky ;  she 
was  rather  illumined  than  dressed  in  silk.  Charity  was  a 
heart-sick  woman,  driven  and  fagged,  and  swaddled  now  in 
a  heavy  woolen  blanket  of  great  bunches  and  wrinkles. 
Kedzie  was  new  and  pink  and  fresh  as  any  dew-dotted 
morning-glory  that  ever  sounded  its  little  bugle-note  of 
fragrance.  Charity  was  an  old  sweetheart,  worn,  drooping, 
wilted  as  a  broken  rose  left  to  parch  with  thirst. 

Yet  it  was  Charity  that  made  his  heart  race  with  love 
and  desire  and  determination.  She  was  Hypatia  to  him 
and  he  vowed  that  the  churchmen  should  not  deny  her  nor 
destroy  her.  He  clenched  his  fists  with  resolution,  then 
went  back  to  his  book  and  finished  it.  He  loved  it  so  well 
that  he  forgave  the  Church  and  the  clergy  somewhat  for 

632 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

the  sake  of  this  clergyman  who  had  spoken  so  sturdily  for 
truth  and  beauty  and  mercy.  He  loved  the  book  so  well 
that  he  even  read  the  preface  and  learned  that  Hypatia 
really  lived  once  and  was  virtuous,  though  pagan,  and  was 
stripped  and  slain  at  the  Christian  altar,  chopped  and  mu- 
tilated with  oyster  shells  in  a  literal  ostracism,  her  bones 
burned  and  her  ashes  flung  into  the  sea. 

The  lesson  Kingsley  drew  from  her  fate  was  that  the 
Church  was  fatally  wrong  to  sanction  "those  habits  of  do- 
ing evil  that  good  may  come,  of  pious  intrigue,  and  at  last 
of  open  persecution,  which  are  certain  to  creep  in  whereso- 
ever men  attempt  to  set  up  a  merely  religious  empire, 
independent  of  human  relationships  and  civil  laws."  The 
preacher-novelist  warned  the  Church  of  now  that  the 
same  old  sins  of  then  were  still  at  work. 

Jim  closed  the  book  and  returned  to  the  window  to 
study  Charity.  He  vowed  that  he  would  protect  her 
from  that  ostracism.  His  wealth  was  but  a  broken  sword, 
but  it  should  save  her. 

He  felt  it  childish  of  her  to  be  so  set  upon  a  wedding  at 
the  hands  of  one  of  the  clergymen  who  stoned  her,  but  he 
liked  her  better  for  finding  something  childish  and  stub- 
born in  her.  She  was  so  good,  so  wise,  so  noble,  so  all-for- 
others,  that  she  needed  a  bit  of  obstinate  foolishness  to 
keep  her  from  being  absolute  marble. 

He  put  on  his  hat  and  his  raincoat  and  went  out  into 
the  town,  hunting  a  clergyman,  resolved  to  compel  him  at 
all  costs.  The  sudden  shower  became  lyrical  to  his  mood 
as  a  railroad  train  clicks  to  the  mood  of  the  passenger. 

There  was  but  one  Episcopal  church  in  the  village 
and  the  parsonage  was  a  doleful  little  cottage  against  a 
shabby  temple.  The  hotelkeeper  had  told  him  how  to 
find  it,  and  the  name  of  the  parson. 

Jim  tapped  piously  on  the  door,  then  knocked,  then 
pounded.  At  length  a  voice  came  to  him  from  somewhere, 
calling: 

"Come  into  the  church!" 

633 


WE   CAN'T   HAVE    EVERYTHING 

"That's  what  I've  been  trying  to  do  for  weeks,"  Jim 
growled.  He  went  into  the  church  and  found  the  parson 
in  his  shirt-sleeves.  He  had  been  setting  dishpans  and 
wash-tubs  and  pails  under  the  various  jets  of  water  that 
came  in  through  the  patched  roof  in  unwelcome  libations. 

His  sleeves  were  rolled  up  and  he  was  rolling  up  pew 
cushions.  He  gave  Jim  a  wet  hand  and  peered  at  him 
curiously.  It  relieved  Jim  not  to  be  recognized  and  re- 
garded as  a  visiting  demon. 

The  clergyman's  high  black  waistcoat  was  frayed  and 
shiny,  as  well  as  wet,  and  his  reverted  collar  had  an  evident 
edge  from  the  way  the  preacher  kept  moistening  his  finger 
and  running  it  along  the  rim.  In  spite  of  this  worse  than  a 
hair-shirt  martyrdom,  the  parson  seemed  to  be  a  mild  and 
pitiful  soul,  and  Jim  felt  hopeful  of  him  as  he  began: 

"I  must  apologize,  Mr.  Rutledge,  for  intruding  on  you, 
but  I — well,  I've  got  more  money  than  I  need  and  I  imag- 
ine you've  got  less.  I  want  to  give  you  a  little  of  mine  for 
your  own  use.  Is  there  any  place  you  could  put  ten  thou- 
sand dollars  where  it  would  do  some  good?" 

Young  Mr.  Rutledge  felt  for  a  moment  that  he  was 
dreaming  or  delirious.  He  made  Jim  repeat  his  speech; 
then  he  stammered: 

"Oh,  my  dear  sir!  The  wants  of  this  parish!  and  my 
poor  chapel!  You  can  see  the  state  of  the  roof,  and  the 
broken  windows.  The  people  are  too  poor  to  pay  for  re- 
pairs. My  own  pittance  is  far  in  arrears,  but  I  can't  com- 
plain of  that  since  so  many  of  my  dear  flock  are  in  need.  I 
was  just  about  persuaded  that  we  should  have  to  abandon 
the  fight  to  keep  the  church  alive.  I  had  not  counted  on 
miracles,  but  it  seems  that  they  do  occur." 

"Well,  I'm  not  exactly  a  miracle-worker,  but  I've  got 
some  money  you  can  have  if — there's  a  string  to  it,  of 
course.  But  you  could  use  ten  thousand  dollars,  couldn't 
you?" 

"Indeed  not,"  said  Mr.  Rutledge,  feeling  as  Faust  must 
have  felt  when  Mephisto  began  to  promise  things.  A 

634 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

spurt  of  water  from  a  new  leak  brought  him  back  from  the 
Middle  Ages  and  he  cried:  "  You  might  lend  a  hand  with 
this  tub,  sir,  if  you  will." 

When  the  new  cascade  was  provided  for,  Jim  renewed  his 
bids  for  the  preacher's  soul : 

"If  you  can't  use  ten  thousand,  how  much  could  you 
use?" 

"  I  don't  know." 

"  Well,  you  could  use  a  new  roof  at  least.  I'll  give  you  a 
new  roof,  and  a  real  stained-glass  window  of  Charity  to  re- 
place that  broken  imitation  atrocity,  and  a  new  organ  and 
hymn-books,  and  new  pew  covers,  and  I'll  pay  your  arrears 
of  salary  and  guarantee  your  future,  and  I'll  give  you  an 
unlimited  drawing  account  for  your  poor,  and — any  other 
little  things  you  may  think  of." 

Mr.  Rutledge  protested: 

"It's  rather  cruel  of  you,  sir,  to  make  such  jokes  at  such 
a  time." 

"God  bless  you,  old  man!  I  never  was  so  much  in 
earnest.  It's  easy  for  me  to  do  those  little  trifles." 

"Then  you  must  be  an  angel  straight  from  heaven." 

"I'm  an  angel,  they  tell  me,  but  from  the  opposite  direc- 
tion. It's  plain  you  don't  know  who  I  am.  Sit  down  and 
I'll  tell  you  the  story  of  my  life." 

So  the  little  clergyman  in  his  shirt-sleeves  sat  shivering 
with  incipient  pneumonia  and  beatitude,  and  by  his  side 
in  the  damp  pew  in  the  dark  chapel  Jim  sat  in  his  rain- 
coat and  unloaded  his  message. 

The  Reverend  Mr.  Rutledge  had  heard  of  Jim  and  of 
Charity,  and  had  regretted  the  assault  of  their  moneyed 
determination  on  the  bulwarks  of  his  faith.  But  somehow 
as  he  heard  Jim  talk  he  found  him  simple,  honest,  forlorn, 
despised  and  rejected,  and  in  desperate  necessity. 

He  looked  at  his  miserable  church  and  thought  of  his 
flock.  Jim's  money  would  put  shingles  on  the  rafters  and 
music  in  the  hymns  and  food  in  the  hungry.  It  became  a 
largess  from  heaven. 

635 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

He  could  see  nothing,  hear  nothing,  but  a  call  to  accept. 
He  asked  for  a  moment  to  consider.  He  retired  to  pray. 

His  prayer  was  interrupted  by  one  of  his  hungriest 
parishioners,  a  Mrs.  McGillicuddy,  one  of  those  poor  old 
washerwomen  whose  woes  pile  up  till  they  are  almost 
laughable  to  a  less  humorous  heart  than  the  little  preach- 
er's. He  asked  her  to  wait  and  returned  to  his  prayers. 

His  sheep  seemed  to  gather  about  their  shepherd  and 
bleat  for  pasture  and  shelter.  They  answered  his  prayer 
for  him.  He  came  back  and  said: 

"I  will." 

"  I  do,"  was  what  Jim  and  Charity  said  a  little  later  when 
Jim  had  wrested  Charity  from  her  sleep  by  pounding  at  her 
door.  He  waited,  frantically,  while  she  dressed.  And  he 
had  the  town's  one  hack  at  the  door  below.  He  was  afraid 
that  the  parson  would  change  his  mind  before  they  could 
get  the  all-important  words  out  of  him. 

They  rode  through  the  rain  like  Heine's  couple  in  the 
old  stage-coach,  with  Cupid,  the  blind  passenger,  be- 
tween them.  They  ran  into  the  church  under  the  last 
bucketfuls  of  shower.  Jim  produced  the  license  he  had 
carried  so  long  in  vain.  The  washerwoman  consented  to 
be  one  witness;  the  sexton-janitor  made  the  other. 

Jim  had  the  ring  ready,  too.  He  had  carried  it  long 
enough.  It  made  a  little  smoldering  glimmer  in  the  dusk 
church.  He  knelt  by  Charity  during  the  prayer,  and 
helped  her  to  her  feet,  and  the  little  clergyman  kissed  her 
with  fearsome  lips.  Jim  nearly  kissed  him  himself. 

He  did  hug  Mrs.  McGillicuddy,  and  pressed  into  her 
hand  a  bill  that  she  thought  was  a  dollar  and  blessed  him 
for.  When  she  got  home  and  found  what  it  was  she  almost 
fainted  into  one  of  her  own  tubs. 

Jim  left  a  signed  check  for  the  minister,  with  the  sum- 
lines  blank,  and  begged  him  not  to  be  a  miser.  They 
left  with  him  a  great  doubt  as  to  what  the  Church  would  do 
to  him  for  doing  what  he  had  done  for  his  chapel.  But  he 

636 


WE    CAN'T    HAVE    EVERYTHING 

was  as  near  to  a  perfection  of  happiness  as  he  was  likely 
ever  to  be. 

His  future  woes  were  for  him,  as  Charity's  and  Jim's 
were  for  them.  They  would  be  sufficient  to  their  several 
days;  but  for  this  black  rainy  night  there  were  no  sorrows. 

It  was  too  late  to  get  back  to  the  city  and  luxury — and 
notoriety.     They  stayed  where  they  were  and  were  glad 
enough.     They  expected  to  fare  worse  on  the  battle-front  • 
in  France  where  they  would  spend  their  honeymoon. 

There  was  some  hesitation  as  to  which  of  their  two 
rooms  at  the  hotel  was  the  less  incommodious,  but  the 
furniture  had  been  magically  changed.  Everything  was 
velvet  and  silk;  what  had  been  barrenness  was  a  noble  sim- 
plicity; what  had  been  dingy  was  glamorous. 

The  ghastly  dinner  sent  up  from  the  dining-room  was  a 
great  banquet,  and  the  locomotive  whistles  and  the  thun- 
derous freight-cars  were  epithalamial  flutes  and  drums. 

Outside,  the  world  was  a  rainy,  clamorous,  benighted 
place.  And  to-morrow  they  must  go  forth  into  it  again. 
But  for  the  moment  they  would  snatch  a  little  rapture, 
finding  it  the  more  fearfully  beautiful  because  it  was  so 
dearly  bought  and  so  fleeting,  but  chiefly  beautiful  because 
they  could  share  it  together. 

They  were  mated  from  the  first,  and  all  the  people  and 
the  trials  that  had  kept  them  apart  were  but  incidents  in  a 
struggle  toward  each  other.  Henceforth  they  should  win 
on  side  by  side  as  one  completed  being,  doing  their  part 
in  war  and  peace,  and  compelling  at  last  from  the  world, 
along  with  the  blame  and  the  indifference  that  every  one 
has  always  had  from  the  world,  a  certain  praise  and  grati- 
tude which  the  world  gives  only  to  those  who  defy  it  for 
the  sake  of  what  their  own  souls  tell  them  is  good  and  true 
and  honorable. 


THE    END 


BOOKS  BY 
SIR  GILBERT  PARKER 


THE  WORLD  FOR   SALE 

THE  MONEY  MASTER 

THE  JUDGMENT  HOUSE 

THE  RIGHT  OF  WAY 

THE  LADDER  OF  SWORDS 

THE  WEAVERS 

THE  BATTLE  OF   THE  STRONG 

WHEN  V ALMOND  CAME  TO  PONT  I  AC 

THE  LANE   THAT  HAD  NO   TURNING 

NORTHERN  LIGHTS 

PIERRE  AND  HIS  PEOPLE 

AN  ADVENTURER  OF  THE  NORTH 

A  ROMANY  OF   THE  SNOWS 

CUMNER'S  SON,  AND  OTHER 
SOUTH  SEA  FOLK 

HARPER   &  BROTHERS 
NEW  YORK       ESTABLISHED  1817       LONDON 


BOOKS  BY 

REX    BEACH 


RAINBOW'S  END 

THE  AUCTION  BLOCK 

THE  CRIMSON  GARDENIA 

THE  IRON   TRAIL 

THE  SPOILERS 

THE  BARRIER 

THE  SILVER  HORDE 

THE  NET 

THE  NE'ER-DO-WELL 

HEART  OF   THE  SUNSET 

GOING  SOME 


HARPER  &   BROTHERS 
NEW  YORK      [ESTABLISHED  1817]      LONDON 


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